The Elite London, described as the city’s “most exclusive jet-set lifestyle event”, filled Wycombe Air Park with row after row of gleaming private jets, seaplanes, hovercrafts (with one for kids), helicopters, and supercars either the size of tanks, or flat on the ground like giant skateboards.

In hangar after hangar, the wares on sale last weekend were designed and priced for the super-rich, though possibly not quite for the cadres in this year’s Sunday Times rich list, which bills itself as “a celebration of aspiration”. A “truly bespoke” £30,000 safe had six permanently revolving wheels that keep your watches synchronised; they recently sold one to protect a household’s £1.3m collection of watches. A writing service offered an illustrated memoir of your life’s successes for £28,000. A monster Land Rover Defender, with its boot open to display champagne and a magnificent picnic basket, promoted educational advice: “Opening the door to the best boarding schools and universities.”

A man who had been discussing a plane with a salesman might have been seriously rich or just a plane-spotter in a panama hat, but I asked him if this flamboyant parade of wealth might be at all embarrassing in a cost of living crisis, when so many hardworking people (always use that phrase) struggle to put food on the table for their children. Did he, perhaps, agree that people who can afford all this should pay a bit more tax? “Why would I?” Well, look at the state of the country, a collapsing NHS, crumbling schools – or potholes that might damage your Bentley? “Look, take any more in tax and the wealthy would be off!........

© The Guardian