Last year the Russian tenants in the London apartment beneath us decamped without paying a single bill. For weeks we were returning invoices “gone away”. These people were working for a Russian billionaire with a mansion in Notting Hill. Britain now has 104 billionaires (up from 88 last year), according to The Sunday Times, and 72 of those live in the capital, making London “home to more billionaires than any other city in the world”. Unfortunately, there is a huge property bubble currently in London, some of it caused by said billionaires. The only unknown is when this bubble is going to burst. When it does, what will the billionaires do? Abandon ship and move elsewhere, leaving behind even more unpaid invoices, in all likelihood.

Epicurus would likely warn against wooing billionaires to your shores, as the British government has done. They seem to do no good, support no poor people or give to worthy charities. They just buy football clubs and frequent restaurants too expensive for the rest of us. In the name of modesty there should be no such thing as a billionaire.