Paul McCartney and the not-so-rich list

It is said you can tell all you need to know about someone from their bank statement. Are they generous or mean, reckless or careful? It will be there in the credits and debits.

So what are we to make of the news that Sir Paul McCartney is not nearly as rich as the rich lists claimed? Or that the late Queen Mother and Luciano Pavarotti, whom the world assumed were staggeringly wealthy, skated through life with overdrafts?

The judge handling McCartney's divorce from Heather Mills has accepted evidence from McCartney's accountants that he is worth only half the £800m often cited in the press. This may of course be a clever ploy by McCartney's team to reduce his payout to Mills. But it may well be true.

Papers recently released from the National Archives show that in 1959, the Queen Mother's treasurer went begging to Harold Macmillan, the

Prime Minister, for an increase in her £70,000 allowance. Her expenses included "an intensely busy household, ceaseless travelling... the items are endless." Macmillan said he could increase her allowance by no more than £8,000 without telling Parliament. Eventually the Queen bailed her out.

Pavarotti died last year with what was assumed to be a giant fortune. Yet earlier this month, it was reported that he left bank debts of £12m. He owned properties in Italy, New York, Monte Carlo and Modena, his home town, but all were mortgaged. His second wife and three daughters from his first marriage were steeling for a fight over a fortune they thought added up to £250m.

The public's fascination with rich lists has led to a tendency to overestimate people's fortunes. Donald Trump realised long ago that it was vital in his business to seem rich. During the 1980s and 1990s, he badgered the editors of Forbes magazine's annual list of the richest 400 Americans to improve his rank.

Even as his estimated wealth topped a billion dollars