Rich are making poor poorer

IN the past three years, the Bank of England has printed £450billion, which the Government has borrowed and given out. That is nearly £10,000 for every single adult in the country.

The wealth growth rate for Britain’s richest is the fastest ever. In The Sunday Times Rich list in 2020, the first year of Covid, the wealth of the country’s richest 250 families increased by over £107bn. Nearly a quarter of the entire cost of the crisis went to just 250 families.

The average billionaire increased his wealth by over 22% in that time.

If Rishi Sunak’s personal wealth, estimated to be £730million, grew at that rate, he would have made over £160m in just one year. Now millions are struggling to eat.

This matters because £450bn is an enormous amount to give to the richest in our society, it means they will spend a lot more. That will push prices up – house prices, stock prices and, crucially, food and energy prices.

This pile of cash which ultimately came from you the taxpayer. With that money, the Government could increase support to ordinary families in this costof-living crisis by 5,000%. But has super-rich Rishi raised incomes on the super rich? No. He’s raised National Insurance, a tax applied to your wage, but not to his income on his wealth.

The richest should not benefit from economic disaster. Not at the price of ordinary people being able to feed their children and heat their homes.

The only way to avoid further collapse is to raise taxes on the very richest in our society. I am willing to pay higher taxes, if it means that ordinary families can eat. The question is, Rishi Sunak, are you?