15 FEBRUARY 1997, Page 21

Millionaires' Row

THIS week's assertion that one in every 550 of us is a millionaire goes to show what statistical definition can do. A friend of mine who was the business partner of a minister found himself written up in the papers as a raffish Harrovian millionaire. His mother-in-law rang him up, asking for further and better particulars, but was handed off. 'After all,' as my friend asked her, 'what is a millionaire these days? Just someone with a house in Fulham who hasn't got a second mortgage.'