And yes, they are richer now than ever before. The pandemic was very difficult for many people but for several capitalists and politicians it seems to have swelled their bank accounts to record levels.
There are now 177 billionaries living in the UK, 6 more than in 2021.
The richest 250 people in the UK are curently worth £710.723bn, up from £658.089 billion in 2021. This is an 8% rise on last year.
The chancellor who is claiming there is no money to spend on increasing welfare payments for the poorest in our society is on the list at number 222 with a combined fortune with his wife of £730 million.
All of this wealth comes from the hard graft of working people across the world and these people take the profits to hoard unimaginable wealth.
Meanwhile around one in five of the UK population (22%) are living in poverty – 14.5 million people. This is 8.1 million working-age adults, 4.3 million children and 2.1 million pensioners.
In addition 2.17 million people used a food bank in the UK in 2021. There are nearly 1,200 food banks across the UK, more than the number of McDonalds.
A massive wealth tax and a progressive corporation tax on any business dealings in the UK would help fund more spending on essentials like benefits, health care and local government. If the rich threaten to leave the country then their bank accounts should be seized.
The Top 20 Rich List (and how they made their money)
Sri and Gopi Hinduja and family – £28.47bn (According to wikipedia they are involved in automotive, oil and specialty chemicals, banking and finance, IT and ITeS, cyber security, healthcare, trading, infrastructure project development, media and entertainment, power, and real estate)
Sir James Dyson and family – £23bn (Vaccum salesman)
David and Simon Reuben and family – £22.26bn (Property)
Sir Leonard Blavatnik – £20bn – (Made his money from the mass privatisation of Russian business in the 1990s, now invests in everything from TV and music industry to petrochemical)
Guillaume Pousaz – £19.26bn (Fintech)
Lakshmi Mittal and family – £17bn (Steel)
Christoph Henkel and family – £15bn (Chemicals and cleaning products)
Guy, George, Alannah and Galen Weston and family – £13.5bn (Retail)
Kirsten and Jorn Rausing – £12bn (Co-owners of Tetra Lavel the packaging company)
Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken and Michel de Carvalho – £11.42bn (Alcohol)
Michael Platt – £10bn (Hedge Fund manager, owner of BlueCrest Capital Management)
Alisher Usmanov – £10bn (Metal, mining operations and investments)
The Duke of Westminster and the Grosvenor family – £9.73bn (property, basically own most of the UK)
Barnaby and Merlin Swire and family – £9.6bn (Chair of Swire Group, does everything from shipping to bottling Coca Cola)
Marit, Lisbet and Sigrid Rausing – £9.49bn (Tetra-Lavell and food packaging)
Anil Agarwal – £9.2bn (Finance and investment also arsenic poisoning)
Denise, John, and Peter Coates – £8.64bn (Founders of bet365 – so gambling)
John Fredriksen and family – £8.31bn (Shipping and oil)
Mikhail Fridman – £8.22bn (Banking and oil)
Moshe Kantor – £8bn (Mineral fertilizer production)
