MARGARET Thatcher's vision of a share-owning democracy is all very well, up to a point. But old money is still perceived more worthy than new money. Alter all one would not want one's name on the share register adjacent to that of some east end barrow boy who has prospered in the age of equal opportunities. An example comes this week in the pathfinder prospectus for the £200 million sale of AEA Technology, formerly part of the Atomic Energy Authority. But the latest Government sell-off is not aimed at "Sids" - the generic tag given to the common punter in the British Gas privatisation - but at a more superior class of investor altogether. Only 10 per cent of the shares are being offered through share shops and stockbrokers, the bulk of the equity being unobtrusively taken up by a better class of investors, colloquially known as "Jeremys". In the classless society some shareholders are clearly more equal than others.