AMONG the classic comedy characters created by Harry Enfield were a particularly obnoxious couple who never tired of bragging about their wealth.

Self-made millionaire Stanley and his wife Pammy, from the West Midlands, always singled out those who, on first appearances, seemed to be less well off than they were.

Having captured their victim’s attention with the catchphrase: ‘Excuse me sport, but if you don’t mind me saying, we are considerably richer than you,’ the dreadful couple would subsequently drone on and on about their possessions, Pammy’s extensive plastic surgery and their designer clothes.

Of course their comeuppance was always swift, extremely funny and – excuse the pun – at their own great expense. Whenever Stanley met a far wealthier match, he would descend into a fit of abject anger, making life-threatening threats and turning a deep shade of purple which contrasted vividly with his coiffured snow-white hair.

Like many of Enfield’s characters from his 1990s serious Harry Enfield and Chums, Stanley and Pammy were killed off in a spoof Titanic sketch. If there is a moral to their tale, it is one familiar throughout time immemorial: money can’t buy taste or the respect of others, it doesn’t win friends, guarantee health or a long life, and you certainly can’t take it with you.

Or, as Frank Sinatra crooned in harmony with Bing Crosby: ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’

The publication of The Sunday Times Rich List is an annual event eagerly awaited by the Stanleys and Pammys of our designer-conscious, celebrity-infatuated money-centric world. The old adage that while the poor get poorer the rich get richer has been proved yet again by the startling news that in spite of the recession, high unemployment and rising poverty, the collective wealth of the UK’s richest 1,000 people rose by almost a third in the past year.

This is the largest annual rise in 22 years and comes at the end of 13 years of Labour government as testament of another failed promise from the heady summer of 1997, when Blair et al pledged a fairer society for all. In that year, the collective wealth of the richest Britons was £98.99 billion. If wealth really has been redistributed, it seems to have taken the wrong direction.

The 2010 Rich List was full of the interesting facts and figures that have become so popular in the post-Trivial Pursuit era. For example, did you know that Duncan Bannatyne, who once sold ice creams from a roadside van in Jersey, is richer than all the other dragons put together? Or that the Young Persons’ Rich List was dominated by the stars of the Harry Potter movies, while the young wizard’s creator, J K Rowling, was ranked again as the wealthiest writer?

Why are we so fascinated by those who are much, much richer than we are?
Does it really matter if a billionaire’s fortune has gone up or down? When push to comes to shove, their fluctuating bank balances have no relevance for the average man or woman.

If the billionaires and millionaires who feature on this year’s Rich List made their fortunes because they worked hard, then they deserve it. If they became rich beyond most people’s dreams by ducking and diving and hurting others along the way, then shame on them.

All we can hope of from those who make their homes in Jersey to avoid paying higher taxes in the UK is that they pay their fair dues and contribute to Island life in a meaningful way. With so many billionaires and obviously wealthy folk residing on this little rock, I wonder why so many local charities are struggling to raise money.

Perhaps one requirement of being granted the lucrative privilege of 1(1)k status should be becoming patron of a deserving cause to which a percentage of the taxes saved by being domiciled in this Island must be donated each year. After all, when it comes to trying to get through the eye of the needle on the Day of Reckoning, a rich man may need all the lubrication he can get.

ISLANDERS didn’t need a penny to their name last weekend to enjoy a wonderful spectacle on our roads. Unlike the annual Jersey Rally, which imprisons householders for hours on end, denying access and stopping people from walking on the route because of the danger to life and limb of cars driven at excessive speeds, the two stages of the Tour de Bretagne were a liberating joy.

Spectators were allowed freedom of movement to watch the spectacle from varying vantage routes and the result, in particular last Sunday in my neck of the Grouville woods, was a rare day of peace of quiet from traffic nuisance for those who lived along the route.

Moreover, householders came out in true Tour de France style to sit in their gardens, perch on walls or stand in fields or on hedges to cheer on the fabulous colourful cavalcade.

The atmosphere at the start and finish in Gorey resembled a carnival, helped in large part by ample car parking and free buses to and from town.

It was a fantastic success for Tourism, bringing to the Island’s roads not just a sporting event worthy of the disruption it may have caused, but a real community spirit that brought neighbours and friends – and complete strangers – together on a sunny spring afternoon.