The ranks of London’s highest earners have swelled by nearly 60 per cent in just four years and their buying power compared with the average citizen is now greater than at any time since the 1930s, according to research by the Financial Times.

The most up-to-date data from income tax records and the Office for National Statistics show individuals with incomes in the top 1 per cent of the UK’s taxpayers pulling away even from the merely well paid in the final years of Tony Blair’s premiership.