It is the 1980s and the Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the year: Newspaper-columnist Hilary gets thousands for telling it like it isn`t; Henry`s turning hospitals into car parks; Roddy`s selling art in return for sex; down on the farm Dorothy`s squeezing every last pound from her livestock; Thomas is making a killing on the stock exchange; and Mark is selling arms to dictators. But once their hapless biographer Michael Owen starts investigating the family`s trail of greed, corruption and immoral doings, the time grows ripe for the Winshaws to receive their comeuppance ...