Corbyn & the earnings limit

[CombatClaret]

He won't give a figure though so let's imagine he says £500,000 per year. Reasonable?.

Didn't put a figure on it but did ask "Why would someone need to earn more than £50m a year?" which is a valid question. There comes a point where you have more money than you would ever need to live in luxury.
We deem that someone can not earn enough to live so why not too much?

Seems capitalism relies on the middle class fueling growth more than the super rich but the former is standing still while the latter continues to rise and horde wealth from the other 99%.

[Paul Waine]

Not for the first time I find myself in disagreement with Corbyn. I entirely agree that inequality is out of control, and something has to be done about it. However I don't think his (or more accurately, the Labour Party's) proposal goes far enough. To really tackle the problem we need to put a cap on wealth itself.

If we want to have a functioning market economy we need to redistribute wealth. When a significant proportion of a society's wealth is owned by a tiny group of people, and there are a lot of people at the other end of the scale who can hardly afford to get by the system needs to be readjusted or replaced. The vast majority of people in Britain have seen their incomes stagnate since 2010, but the richest 1000 have seen their wealth double to over half a trillion pounds. During this time we've seen huge cuts to public services - the NHS is on the ropes, university tuition fees have tripled, libraries, road repair, and care for the elderly, slashed; draconian measures taken against disabled and poor people. And the cost of living has shot up as well - thanks to water, power and train companies.

If anyone is drinking koolaid, it's those who think the status quo will bring us all prosperity.

Unless you're extremely rich you have nothing to gain, and everything to lose by deriding redistribution. If you don't like Corbyn, fine, but rather than just saying 'he's unelectable' why not put forward your own ideas about how to re-balance the economy?

Read through these posts... thought where to start.... who do I quote and ask them to think about what they are saying...

First of all, I am not "extremely rich." I've "done OK" for a kid from the cobbled streets of Accrington but nothing more. My wealth is in my family and my friends - and, as many on here, my health.

Why are we all so materialistic? Why do we measure financial wealth/income and described those that have a lot of wealth/income as "rich" and those that haven't as "poor." Why are we so "hung up" on "inequality?" (Why are we so envious of those that have more than we do)?

Are we bothered about the inequality of footballing talent? or other sporting talent? or music? or acting? or scientific knowledge? - the list will be endless?

I picked out AJB's post to look at a few points:

Why is it "society's wealth?" - why is it not the wealth that some people amongst the many in the society have accumulated/earned (or acquired by whatever means, legal or illegal, honest or dishonest)?

"The vast majority of people in Britain have seen their incomes stagnate since 2010, but the richest 1000 have seen their wealth double to over half a trillion pounds." Really, "half a trillion pounds" in numbers is £500,000,000,000, i.e. five hundred billion? Chelsea's owner is reported to be worth US$7 billion. (From wiki: "According to Forbes, Abramovich's net worth in 2016 was US$ 7 billion, making him the 13th richest person in Russia, and the 151st richest person in the world.)" How many billionaires do we think live in Britain? Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Slim - who I think have been competing for "richest person in the world" aren't worth $500 billion combined. I've checked Fortune (we can all google), Ortega (I'd not heard of him), the owner of Zara, is current #3. In fact, according to Fortune, the fortunes of the top 10 billionaires in 2016 combined don't quite make it to $500 billion.

Perhaps AJB meant "billion" rather than "trillion" - or perhaps he meant "million."

When the media talks about wealth and "inequality" they often confuse (I) people living in the UK and the average wage for this group and (ii) the CEOs of companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. They make the mistake of thinking because the company is listed on LSE that the CEO is a UK citizen/living in the UK. Many, many of them are neither. The majority of the top 100 companies listed on the LSE are multinational groups - and their bosses are not British and don't live in Britain.

So, Jeremy Corbyn would like a wage cap - but, he would set it above his already very high salary - and we'll all ignore his very generous pension (paid for by UK tax payers) in calculating his wage. My estimate of the annualised earnings of JC adding in (a rough estimate) of the value of his pension rights is £225,000 - give or take £25,000. Not bad. Let's say it's 8 times the average wage (again, including pension rights). So, we think a salary cap is OK - but it would be at a higher level than JC? How many do we expect to be caught by the cap? And, we've decided to exempt premier league footballers? Why? Is there not even more "inequality" and unfairness in someone who can kick a football - or can manage a football team or be a pundit - earning as much as they do - with possibly no other talent than football?

If you've got a problem with inequality of wealth and income you've got to apply it to all wealth and all incomes. If you've got that problem, the cap should be set close to the average earnings - it should apply to all the politicians just as it should apply to everyone else.

Someone has mentioned "try again, but do it better..." So, better means that there is "no exemption" for the politicians, there are no "privileges" for party members and there are no "bloody persecutions" of the people who started with more wealth, more education, more of anything that the political leaders have decided that they "don't like" and that can be used by the politicians as the platform for their claim to power. Joseph Stalin, any one? Adolf Hitler, any one? Pol Pot? Mao? Unfortunately, it's a very long list and this is only over the past 100 years.

We don't eradicate poverty, we don't improve our own situation, economic or social, and we don't reduce inequality by being envious and covetous of the wealth of others.

[Paul Waine]

But there is a wider point too. 20 years ago the top bosses of the FTSE 100 companies earned just under 50 times their average worker, today that figure is now 130 times. Last year alone, the top bosses got a 10 per cent pay rise, far higher than those doing the work in the shops, in the call centres, in the warehouses.

Hi RMutt, just wanted to discuss this point. How many of the FTSE 100 companies today were also FTSE 100 companies "20 years ago?" How many of the new companies are multinationals that are listed in London but "the boss" is not British and doesn't live in Britain - and, in fact, the company doesn't employ many people in Britain?

How much of their "10 per cent pay rise" was not salary or bonus but results from increases in the share price? And, how much is related to their pension rights and the way that these pension rights are required to be valued?

Last question: How many of the FTSE 100 companies employ people in the UK "in shops, in call centres, in warehouses?"

Top 25 with their current market capitalisation listed:

Royal Dutch Shell 185,177
HSBC Holdings 130,386
BP 95,726
British American Tobacco 86,159
GlaxoSmithKline 76,098
Banco Santander Central Hispano 60,407
AstraZeneca 56,115
Diageo 53,111
Vodafone Group 53,083
Reckitt Benckiser Group 48,380
Lloyds Banking Group 44,616
Rio Tinto 43,416
Unilever 42,258
Shire 42,089
Prudential 41,919
Glencore 39,924
Barclays 37,788
BT Group 36,522
National Grid 35,825
Imperial Brands 33,962
BHP Billiton 27,594
Royal Bank of Scotland Group 26,483
Compass Group 24,659
CRH 23,488
WPP Group 23,291
Standard Chartered 21,789

[AndrewJB]

In response to Paul Waine - see the link below regarding the wealth of the richest thousand people in the UK:

http://www.luxuo.com/super-rich/top-100 ... -2016.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They are all residents of the UK, though I'm sure they don't spend all their time here. The article answers another of your questions somewhat. Seventy seven billionaires live in London. If I can now ask you a question, do you think they each work as hard as a thousand millionaires? Perhaps of more importance, our economy would be far better off if that money were spread across seventy-seven thousand people, making them each a millionaire. And if instead that money were distributed more widely - giving seventy-seven million people a thousand pounds each - it would provide a great boost to the economy.

That kind of concentrated wealth brings power, and as expected the influence they buy (you can have lunch with the PM for ten grand) is all about keeping their taxes low and maximising their earnings. If that means the rest of us have to make do with cuts to services, it's a price they're willing to pay. How else has their wealth doubled over a half decade of low growth?

As you rightly point out, things of real value are health, family, and friends - but all these things are put under strain in an economy tilting toward zero hours jobs, and reduced public services; and all these things are coming about because we've allowed a small number of people to get so wealthy they have an outrageously disproportionate say in how the country is run.

I'm not advocating absolute equality, and nor am I motivated by envy. I would like to see wealth capped at a level high enough that only a handful of people out of a thousand would be affected (and even then they wouldn't be made 'poor'), because the super rich are a drain on our economy, and a danger to democracy.

[RingoMcCartney]

By the age of 20. If you are not a socialist, you have no heart.

By the age 40. If you are not conservative, you have no brain.

[lucs86]

I'm not a civil servant... But to me it seems like if you had the political will there are a lot of ways that some form of salary cap could be implemented, whether limited to public sector or public sector supply chain or just via other incentives (the way that some public facing companies have been paying the living wage long before it became law). I wouldn't worry that football clubs wouldn't be able to pay their players or that Jeremy Clarkson wouldn't be allowed to make TV programmes, there would be ways.
This would be a decent way to bring attention to an important issue that as I understand it has been getting steadily worse for decades. I also don't believe that any government would get any extreme version of this through parliament, the lords and past the lobbyists, media and public. It's not something that just needs dismissing out of hand.

[Dejavu]

That's not what he said. 20x the minimum.

Not according to the BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38568116" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Paul Waine]

In response to Paul Waine - see the link below regarding the wealth of the richest thousand people in the UK:

http://www.luxuo.com/super-rich/top-100 ... -2016.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They are all residents of the UK, though I'm sure they don't spend all their time here. The article answers another of your questions somewhat. Seventy seven billionaires live in London. If I can now ask you a question, do you think they each work as hard as a thousand millionaires? Perhaps of more importance, our economy would be far better off if that money were spread across seventy-seven thousand people, making them each a millionaire. And if instead that money were distributed more widely - giving seventy-seven million people a thousand pounds each - it would provide a great boost to the economy.

That kind of concentrated wealth brings power, and as expected the influence they buy (you can have lunch with the PM for ten grand) is all about keeping their taxes low and maximising their earnings. If that means the rest of us have to make do with cuts to services, it's a price they're willing to pay. How else has their wealth doubled over a half decade of low growth?

As you rightly point out, things of real value are health, family, and friends - but all these things are put under strain in an economy tilting toward zero hours jobs, and reduced public services; and all these things are coming about because we've allowed a small number of people to get so wealthy they have an outrageously disproportionate say in how the country is run.

I'm not advocating absolute equality, and nor am I motivated by envy. I would like to see wealth capped at a level high enough that only a handful of people out of a thousand would be affected (and even then they wouldn't be made 'poor'), because the super rich are a drain on our economy, and a danger to democracy.

Hi AJB, so 77 "sterling billionaires" in London - but not all these guys are British. Why should the Hinduja brothers' wealth be shared out among residents of Britain? Haven't the Indian population a greater claim, if we accept this view of wealth re-distribution? Similarly, Mittal and several others.

I agree fully with you on the "power" that can come with great wealth - and I've posted my thoughts on way's of "strengthening democracy" on a number of occasions. But, I've also posted that our top rate of tax should be 40% - anything above this level is not going to benefit the "poor" in our society. Confiscatory taxes are either "self-defeating" i.e. they result in evasion and avoidance, they don't collect higher taxes, or they "destroy democracy" and preserving/maintaining and growing democracy will always be more valuable to all of us. You and I both agree on this.

Cap the wealth of a few - and they go and live elsewhere - and the rest of us are a little bit poorer because there is lower economic activity in the UK. If you like, capping wealth will have a more serious impact on our economy than the worst of the worst of George Osborne's "Brexit, doom and gloom" forecasts.

Lastly, how long do you think the "economic boost" would be sustained if we all had an extra £1,000? How many of the recipients would put the money into "worthwhile investments" - and how many would invest in a new TV, a w/end away or other consumables? Yes, £77 billion would help with the government deficit - but most of that billionaire money isn't the UK's to tax/confiscate/appropriate - and what is in the UK's tax system will have already been taxed (albeit, within the existing rules).

[LoveCurryPies]

Didn't put a figure on it....

That's the problem with Jeremy. There is no substance to his ideas. Nothing has been thought through or costed out. He just likes floating ideas to gain support.

Imagine if he got into power...he wouldn't have a clue because he's never dealt with reality and how you legally make things work.

You bring a limit into salaries and all the sports stars, pop stars, film and tv celebrities, leave the country and then the uk receives no tax at all from their earnings.

Billionaires like Philip Green avoiding uk tax might have been a better avenue for JC to explore.

[Paul Waine]

By the age of 20. If you are not a socialist, you have no heart.

By the age 40. If you are not conservative, you have no brain.

I studied Marxism when I was 20. I also studied Soviet Economics.

I never got what Marx was "on about" - but, equally, Soviet Economics had nothing to do with Marx.

The older I get the more radical I feel I'm becoming - or confused.

[Imploding Turtle]

The hardly-unsympathetic to Corbyn Grauniad understood this too

Lol. You think the Guardian is a fan of his?

[dsr]

If Corbyn tells the man on £500k that he has three options:

1. Pay yourself less;
2. Pay your low-paid people more;
3. Sack your low-paid people and outsource their jobs to agencies;

then we all know what would happen. There will be no jobs for cleaners in large companies any more; they'll be working for agency workers, on less pay and less job security.

I agree plc executives are on ridiculous salaries, and they mostly aren't worth it. All this non-executive director rubbish has encouraged this - tell two companies that they must appoint non-executive directors from other companies to tell them how much they can get paid, and what happens? A nudge, a wink, and they appoint each other and recommend that each other should get a 50% rise.

How do we stop it? No idea. But not the way Corbyn's recommending.

[aggi]

The easy way to redistribute wealth is bump up inheritance tax to significant levels. A £500k exempt amount followed by 95% tax would sort it within a few generations.

There'd also be the added bonus of more properties on the market as they were sold to pay the taxes.

Obviously to implement this you'd also have to tackle all the various tricks of storing wealth in trusts, etc.

[Imploding Turtle]

The easy way to redistribute wealth is bump up inheritance tax to significant levels. A £500k exempt amount followed by 95% tax would sort it within a few generations.

There'd also be the added bonus of more properties on the market as they were sold to pay the taxes.

Obviously to implement this you'd also have to tackle all the various tricks of storing wealth in trusts, etc.

I don't think that's the way to go. And i don't think forcing companies to have a maximum wage is either.

I think a smarter tax system would perhaps be a start and can be used to effectively raise wages among the lowest paid and/or lowering the wages of the highest paid. Tie corporation tax to the difference between lowest earners and highest earners (including bonuses). Do this and either the largest companies in the UK will pay their lowest earners more because it reduces their tax burden, or they pay their executives less which isn't going to happen.

Or start taxing companies more for each worker who can't earn enough on a full-time wage to not need welfare. It should be a scandal that we're subsidising these companies wage bill because they're too greedy to pay their employees a living wage.

Income inequality is getting out of control in this country, so we need to start thinking about doing something differently because whatever the **** is being done isn't working.

[AndrewJB]

Paul Waine - my point about capping wealth in this country is that it would make life better for all of us. Yes there would be questions to be resolved around foreign ownership (the Hinduja brothers are British nationals, by the way) - not least about foreigners who have invested more than the cap in this country but never lived here, for example - but details such as that could be sorted out (a different discussion perhaps).

There is nothing revolutionary about capping wealth. We have many restrictions on what we can own, and what we can do with our property already. Neither of us are allowed to carry assault rifles in public - despite the fact we'd never fire them. We accept this as a common sense rule of not putting other people in danger. We manage to live and get by without the need to carry a gun. Allowing people to amass fortunes beyond the comprehension of the average person is akin to letting people arm themselves as they choose - but on a bigger scale. As I've said, such wealth brings power. In a democratic sense we have pitchforks, and they have nuclear weapons. It doesn't matter how nice or lovely they are - just as it doesn't with you and I over carrying assault rifles - curbing their wealth and power is for the good of us all.

"They might leave" - let them. Do you want this country to bend the knee to a handful of uber rich people or actually 'take back control'? The rich are making the rules right now, and ordinary people are suffering. Let's take back control.

[Imploding Turtle]

It's a damn sight more in tune with his lunatic ideas than I am, so yes.

What "lunatic" idea of his has it endorsed?

[lucs86]

So what is it your against then if you're prepared to make exceptions for footballers and the execrable Clarkson? So Wayne Rooney £15m pa (plus all the extras including what's hidden as image rights) is OK but Chief Exec of a major company with 20,000 livelihoods in your responsibility at £500k is not OK?

I like football, it doesn't fall under 'work' to me. Might not be rational or fair but there's a difference and it would be acknowledged. If we were forcing football clubs into this you could end up separating the playing staff from the retail side of the club. Law is riddled with exemptions.

[JohnMcGreal]

The level of wealth inequality in the UK has been a problem for some time, and it's been getting worse over this decade. I applaud any political leader who identifies this as an actual problem and tries to do something to tackle it. I don't agree with a maximum wage cap, like Corbyn has suggested, but I do agree that something needs to be done about it. His heart is in the right place, but his methods are off.

For me, the most realistic and achievable thing a government can do to re-distribute wealth and reduce high levels of inequality is to make sure that the tax system is designed to actually achieve that. If the tax system is deliberately designed for the richest people in society to be able to legally avoid paying large amounts of tax, then there is a problem.

Remember that we were sold the idea that huge wealth in few hands was good for everyone, because that wealth trickles down and makes us all richer. That only happens if the wealthiest people in society actually pay their taxes as they are supposed to. If they manage to avoid large amounts of taxation, that wealth doesn't trickle down in the way that it should. It's just hoarded by the richest 1%.

But this should have been sorted out at the beginning of the decade. It's gone on for so long now that it's not the most pressing issue anymore. Brexit will be the only show in town for the foreseeable future, and that leaves a massive question mark over our economy on it's own.

[Paul Waine]

Paul Waine - my point about capping wealth in this country is that it would make life better for all of us. Yes there would be questions to be resolved around foreign ownership (the Hinduja brothers are British nationals, by the way) - not least about foreigners who have invested more than the cap in this country but never lived here, for example - but details such as that could be sorted out (a different discussion perhaps).

There is nothing revolutionary about capping wealth. We have many restrictions on what we can own, and what we can do with our property already. Neither of us are allowed to carry assault rifles in public - despite the fact we'd never fire them. We accept this as a common sense rule of not putting other people in danger. We manage to live and get by without the need to carry a gun. Allowing people to amass fortunes beyond the comprehension of the average person is akin to letting people arm themselves as they choose - but on a bigger scale. As I've said, such wealth brings power. In a democratic sense we have pitchforks, and they have nuclear weapons. It doesn't matter how nice or lovely they are - just as it doesn't with you and I over carrying assault rifles - curbing their wealth and power is for the good of us all.

"They might leave" - let them. Do you want this country to bend the knee to a handful of uber rich people or actually 'take back control'? The rich are making the rules right now, and ordinary people are suffering. Let's take back control.

Hi Andrew, how do we know that "capping wealth in this country would make life better for all of us?" Do you recall what happened when 1960s/70s Labour gov't had marginal income tax rate of 83% + 15% unearned income surcharge = 98%. Many of the wealthier people moved abroad and not just "super high earners" - scientists and doctors and similar moved to places where taxes were lower. We called it "the brain drain." And, the rest of country certainly were not made better off either by the high tax rates or the "rich people" leaving.

I agree with you that we don't want our democracy to be dominated by the "uber rich" - and, certainly, I'm not a "bend the knee" type of guy with anyone. I'd scrap all titles and honours for all, no more "Lord," "Dame" or "Sir" whether for having been a civil servant, a rich businessman or a successful sportsperson.

I'm not sure that your metaphor that "wealth is a big weapon" quite works for me. Don't we all want "stable and patient capital" i.e. long term investments providing the foundation of successful businesses and employment for many?

[Paul Waine]

The level of wealth inequality in the UK has been a problem for some time, and it's been getting worse over this decade. I applaud any political leader who identifies this as an actual problem and tries to do something to tackle it. I don't agree with a maximum wage cap, like Corbyn has suggested, but I do agree that something needs to be done about it. His heart is in the right place, but his methods are off.

For me, the most realistic and achievable thing a government can do to re-distribute wealth and reduce high levels of inequality is to make sure that the tax system is designed to actually achieve that. If the tax system is deliberately designed for the richest people in society to be able to legally avoid paying large amounts of tax, then there is a problem.

Remember that we were sold the idea that huge wealth in few hands was good for everyone, because that wealth trickles down and makes us all richer. That only happens if the wealthiest people in society actually pay their taxes as they are supposed to. If they manage to avoid large amounts of taxation, that wealth doesn't trickle down in the way that it should. It's just hoarded by the richest 1%.

But this should have been sorted out at the beginning of the decade. It's gone on for so long now that it's not the most pressing issue anymore. Brexit will be the only show in town for the foreseeable future, and that leaves a massive question mark over our economy on it's own.

Hi JohnMcG,

I'm indebted to today's Times for this data:

"Income inequality rose in the 1980s and 1990s, peaking at 36.8 in 1990 on a disposable income basis using the Gini coefficient, and was still 34.7 a decade ago. It was 31.6 last year."

"The introduction of the national living wage last year is likely to have reduced income inequality further since latest ONS data was compiled."

[Paul Waine]

I like football, it doesn't fall under 'work' to me. Might not be rational or fair but there's a difference and it would be acknowledged. If we were forcing football clubs into this you could end up separating the playing staff from the retail side of the club. Law is riddled with exemptions.

Hi lucs86, so, if we enjoy doing/watching it is not work?

Would we make an exception for the person that enjoys cleaning or caring for others or completing tax returns or in any way "enjoys" their work?

Or, just football?

[aggi]

I don't think that's the way to go. And i don't think forcing companies to have a maximum wage is either.

I think a smarter tax system would perhaps be a start and can be used to effectively raise wages among the lowest paid and/or lowering the wages of the highest paid. Tie corporation tax to the difference between lowest earners and highest earners (including bonuses). Do this and either the largest companies in the UK will pay their lowest earners more because it reduces their tax burden, or they pay their executives less which isn't going to happen.

Or start taxing companies more for each worker who can't earn enough on a full-time wage to not need welfare. It should be a scandal that we're subsidising these companies wage bill because they're too greedy to pay their employees a living wage.

Income inequality is getting out of control in this country, so we need to start thinking about doing something differently because whatever the **** is being done isn't working.

That's not going to tackle the inequality though. The rich will continue to get richer, possibly at a slower rate but the absolute difference will increase all the time. There are a whole host of studies showing it but you only have to look at the current cabinet to see what advantages coming from a wealthy background convey.

[Paul Waine]

That's not going to tackle the inequality though. The rich will continue to get richer, possibly at a slower rate but the absolute difference will increase all the time. There are a whole host of studies showing it but you only have to look at the current cabinet to see what advantages coming from a wealthy background convey.

I understand our current Prime Minister is the daughter of a vicar - and Gordon Brown was also a "son of the manse." Yes, David Cameron (couldn't remember his name for a moment) and Tony Blair were both public school boys and, I think, both from what we would describe as wealthy backgrounds.

Going back a little further, John Major didn't come from a wealthy background and Margaret Thatcher was the daughter of a grocery shopkeeper.

Agree we want our politicians elected "on merit" rather than wealth. I believe we should also want them to be well informed and capable of representing "the people."

[lucs86]

Hi lucs86, so, if we enjoy doing/watching it is not work?

Would we make an exception for the person that enjoys cleaning or caring for others or completing tax returns or in any way "enjoys" their work?

Or, just football?

No, I'd also exempt T20 cricket and possibly darts (let's see how the Premier League goes first) but definitely not rugby or athletics.

If cleaning and/or completing tax returns becomes a spectator sport that people the world over enjoy and pay to watch then it would only be fair to consider them for the 'not work' exemption. Glad that's settled.

[Rowls]

I don't think that's the way to go. And i don't think forcing companies to have a maximum wage is either.

I think a smarter tax system would perhaps be a start and can be used to effectively raise wages among the lowest paid and/or lowering the wages of the highest paid. Tie corporation tax to the difference between lowest earners and highest earners (including bonuses). Do this and either the largest companies in the UK will pay their lowest earners more because it reduces their tax burden, or they pay their executives less which isn't going to happen.

Or they'll start tax avoidance scheme separating their companies alongside pay brackets. That way, they'd be able to pay exactly what they wanted, with wider discrepancies AND lower their corporation tax by having a very low disparity between pay grades.

By the law of unintended consequences you achieve the exact opposite of what you were trying to achieve - you'd do nothing to lower the gap between pay and you would lower tax receipts as businesses went about using your new idea to avoid tax.

[Rowls]

Income inequality is getting out of control in this country, so we need to start thinking about doing something differently because whatever the **** is being done isn't working.

Where have you heard this? I've heard Jeremy Corbyn make this -unverified- claim but I've also heard journalists state that income inequality has been static for 20-25 years.

Can we find out whether income inequality is rising or staying still?

[AndrewJB]

Hi Paul Waine - you say you wouldn't like to see politics dominated by the very wealthy, but it already is. The Conservative Party get more than half their funding from the City. If you're rich you can set up a 'think tank' that looks to be independent to sell your agenda to the public as though it's based on scholarly work. Or you can own media organisations themselves and push your agenda that way.

[South West Claret.]

Jeremy wants to put a maximum limit on how much a person can earn.

Can't imagine it will be less than his £140,000 a year salary.

He won't give a figure though so let's imagine he says £500,000 per year. Reasonable?

So what would happen to our professional footballers, film stars & to celebrities, property developers, bankers & financiers (easy target for you), sports people, musicians & popstars etc?

its ok him floating an idea to get elected, but he would have no way of making this work.

Just tax them more like they used to do.