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The other thing I thought about from that link, and

helenic's post. I was thinking about the meaning of "middle class", I remember someone saying that "middle" wasn't necessarily the middle of the population, more... the middle of a series of concepts. Possibly the "middle" if you weight people by how much attention their status allows them to grab. Which made me think about whose pocket the median average pound is in - the table suggests that it belongs to someone who is just about inside the top 10%.

Wealth is funny; debts, housing[1], expensive tastes, friends and relatives with expensive social expectations, expensive places to live, PPP etc. The effects of wealth long-term are one thing, the effects of changes in wealth in the short-to-medium term are another. Also, wealth is not income.

[1] There's an issue with inheritance tax here; instinctively I think it's a really good thing, there should be lots of it, the thing that makes me think twice is when people point out how it can break up family homes.