Jeremy Corbyn’s latest move – to give reassurance that Labour will campaign to remain in Europe and then, if elected in 2020, reverse from the inside any diminution of workers’ rights which Cameron may have secured – is a smart move when it is linked with pushing through the £50bn financial transactions tax on almost all EU bond, share and derivative transactions. But in terms of the wealthy making a fair contribution to paying down the budget deficit, which is Osborne’s excuse for prolonged austerity whose real aim is to shrink the State, there are many other options to serve that goal. Continue reading
Tagged with Property
Redistributing property empires of Britain’s ultra-rich families would be as popular as energy price freeze
Oxfam has just reported that Britain’s richest 5 families are wealthier than 12.6 Britons who make up a fifth of the entire UK population. The latest survey from Forbes magazine shows that these 5 fortunes are heavily based on property rather than entrepreneurial innovation. The families listed are those of the Duke of Westminster (who owns 190 acres of prime real estate in Belgravia, London), the property magnates David and Simon Reuben, the Hinduja brothers, the Cadogan family whose wealth has always traditionally come from property, and (the one exception) the Sports Direct investor Mike Ashley. Their combined wealth works out at £28.2bn, an average per family of £5.6bn each. The collective wealth of the poorest 12 million Britons however comes to only £2,230 each. Thus the wealth of the richest 5 families is 2.5 million times greater than that of the bottom fifth. This is grotesque: so what should be done about it? Continue reading
