Today the Podcast Podcast Economy
Why British Labor fired on billionaires
In the United Kingdom the British billionaires find themselves in spite of themselves in the center of the campaign of the legislative elections, planned on December 12th. Because Labor focuses their program on the denunciation of the excesses of the richest.
" The fortune of the rich: it's obscene! Billionaires: They should not exist ". Here are some of the favorite shock phrases of the Labor camp. The British left denounced above all the insatiable appetite of the ultra-rich and their collusion with the conservative camp. Against 50 million pounds of donations to the Conservative Party since 2005, the super rich, and large corporations, got 100 billion pounds of tax rebates, on corporate profit, inheritance or capital income claims the Labor. A handful of people are concerned, of the 151 billionaires in books listed across the Channel, 48 are donors to the Conservative party.
Labor even give names
The Duke of Westminster who enjoys the rents mostly from his land estate or Rupert Murdoch the media mogul. These men embody for Labor the living symbols of the explosion of inequalities. In the last elections, in 2017, inequalities were already one of the themes of the campaign. Since then, income gaps have widened between the richest and the poorest, between the young and the old, between Londoners and those living in remote areas, according to Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton in a report. published this spring. The level of wealth inequality is among the highest in the OECD, behind the United States and South Korea. By throwing shame on some personalities, the Laborists hope above all to capitalize in the polls on the wave of rejection of the rich. According to a survey published this weekend, 51% of Britons find it is not normal to have so much money. Three-quarters want the better-off to be more taxed. If Brexit divides, here is finally a subject that is a consensus.
A program of redistribution of wealth
This denunciation of the super rich is accompanied by a radical program of redistribution of wealth. With first drastic increases in taxes. High-dose nationalizations for water, electricity, railways, and the internet still difficult to access today in some regions. A redistribution of part of the capital of companies to employees. The limitation of wage differentials from 1 to 20, this gap would be today from 1 to 150. The development of audit companies suspected of collusion with the companies they are supposed to control. All these measures obviously chill the City accustomed to ultra privileged treatment. Between 2014 and 2018, dividends paid by Footsie 100 companies increased by 45%. Of the 551 billion pounds of profits generated over this period, 442 were paid back to the shareholders. In comparison, the average gross salary of employees increased by only 8% between 2014 and 2018. Labor therefore wants to rebalance.
How do the concerned billionaires react?
One of them has already announced that in case of a Labor victory he would emigrate to Monaco. The Rock is fiscally more welcoming. The others are more discreet. According to wealth managers, there is only one signature left on the transfer files of their British customers, to Switzerland, for example. Companies do not know if they prefer plague or cholera, Brexit accelerated and without guarantee on the future of Boris Johnson and the economic revolution promised by Jeremy Corbyn.
► In brief
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