What do you consider the distinguishing marker of wealth in Britain today? Is it privately educating the kids? Is it the £60,000 Tesla parked out front with a black cable running to a gleaming box attached to the wall? Let me tell you what I think signifies real wealth today: it’s eating at Gail’s. 

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Because you can’t have failed to have notice the conspicuous unaffordability of Britain’s fastest rising bakery – the one that began life in London in 2005 and now has some 170 branches nationwide.  

At Gail’s a box of five of their cookies costs £18. You can buy a kettle in Robert Dyas for that — and not a bad one either. And that’s the takeaway price. Their standard eat-in prices are even more vertiginous: consider the small-looking but mouth-watering salmon bagel – it’s three bites will cost you a weighty £8.95. Yes, it’s good, but one isn’t enough, and five pence short of nine quid is terrifyingly expensive for those of us who remember when a fiver was something in your pocket.  

Meanwhile, yes, the signature Pastrami Rachel is hard to argue with, but at £9.30 it’s virtually the same price as a Sunday roast in your local pub ten years ago. Next, chuck in a coffee (priced around £3.20) and you’re already spending north of £12. But since most adults require something like 2000 calories to get through........

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