Rich & poor: differences revealed

Did you see Benefits Street? You know, that bit where that fat bloke nobody likes accused his ex-partner of taking drugs in front of her child (from a previous relationship, natch)? And then told the world that she'd cheated on her previous husband while he was dying of cancer. That was after she'd claimed he'd bullied and abused her all summer.

Whoops, silly me. That wasn't Benefits Street, was it? Or even Jeremy Kyle, though it sounds like it. It wasn't an important television expose of the rather unpleasant lives of the emotionally disturbed underclass at all. It was just a few insights into the rather unpleasant lives of the emotionally disturbed overclass that were revealed when Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson gave evidence in court and argued about it afterwards.

So what's the difference? I'm loath to give any more publicity to the insult to journalism that is Channel 4's Benefits Street. But here's a working proposition. The main difference is that those living in poverty tend, in general, to be nicer people, more trusting and open. You could call them gullible. They have a vulnerability that makes them easy to exploit. They don't assume that people who have been nice to them, who've listened to them and reassured them, will then stab them in the back.

That means that they are easy to misrepresent – for political purposes or in the chase for ratings. The overclass, on the other hand, are mistrustful, paranoid and fully understand that people who are nice to you may well be about to betray you. So it's only by the accident of a court case that the world gets to hear about these spongers on the taxpayer.

Spongers on the taxpayer? That's not usually a term for the Saatchis of this world? No, but it might catch on. Especially if anything comes of the Telegraph's suggestion that an investigation into unpaid tax is round the corner.