Them & Us


Rich and poor

The richest tenth of the UK’s population pay 35% of their income (not wealth) in tax.

The poorest tenth pay 43% (including VAT and council tax) of their income (the Guardian, 5 May).

Boomerang Gove

Tory MP Michael Gove knew nothing about education so the last government made him Secretary of State for education, with a pot of money to spend on crackpot schemes such as ‘free schools’ which use untrained staff.

He is now Justice Minister. Can we look forward to ‘free courts’ staffed by unqualified kangaroos?

Derek McMillan

Private fuel poverty

The usual refrain of millionaire government MPs to households enduring fuel poverty is to say they’ll make it easier for consumers to switch suppliers (instead of renationalising the gas and electricity companies and providing cheap energy).

But switching is not so simple, as the Evening Standard reports. Residents of the Myatts Field North estate in Lambeth, south London, are tied into a 40-year private finance initiative contract to supply heating and hot water run by energy giant E.ON. Residents complain of intermittent supplies of hot water. The PFI deal was signed by Labour-run Lambeth council.

Living in glass houses

Chair of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, Margaret Hodge, has regularly railed against tax-dodging corporations. However, it’s reported that Hodge, Labour MP for Barking and Dagenham, had received £1.5 million in Stemcor shares via the tax haven of Liechtenstein.

Hodge owns 10% of Stemcor – a steel company started by her father. According to the Times, 75% of shares in the family’s Liechtenstein trust had previously been held in Panama – a country notorious for money laundering.

Hodge had earlier criticised banking giant HSBC (convicted of money laundering in 2012) for paying huge bonuses to top managers through a Panamanian company.

Exploitation direct

One immediate beneficiary of the Tory election win was billionaire owner of Sports Direct, Mike Ashley. The UK’s 22nd richest person saw his company’s shares leap by 4.5%, netting him an extra £100 million in the process.

Ashley has made his fortune by employing 75% of his workforce on exploitative zero-hour contracts. During the election Labour had mildly called for permanent employment contracts after three months. Hardly revolutionary stuff, but Miliband’s defeat was enough to send the super-rich into paroxysms of delight.