LUCKY JIM’S RAT RUN
THE UK’s richest person, £21billion anti-union chemicals baron James Ratcliffe, symbolises growing inequality.
Heading for squalid tax haven Monaco after banking an underserved knighthood, Brexit backer Rat-cliffe’s in a world billionaire club which increased its wealth by a quarter last year.
Loot of Britain’s 54 billionaires jumped on average to £2.9bn from £2.3bn with Swiss bank UBS and accountants PWC calculating the global elite’s fortunes jumped 19%, the fastest rate for more than a century. Know anybody who had a 19% pay rise recently? No, me neither. And what is it about these Brexit Jims when another anti-Europe zealot, James Dyson, is to make electric cars in Singapore, not Britain. The refusal to put their money where their Brexit mouths were is telling. WHAT struck me hosting an LBC radio discussion on the poppy police over the weekend was that former soldiers actually despise those fingerpointing, self-righteous busybodies who scream abuse whenever the likes of me appear on TV without a red paper flower.
I’ll let you into a secret: many telly programmes stick them on guests and presenters for appearance’s sake without even asking for a donation. I’ll buy and wear mine proudly in the week up to Remembrance Sunday. Until then the pompous poppy plastic patriots will make fools of themselves.