£724 billion. This is the combined wealth of Britain's 1,000 richest. The Sunday Times has produced its annual Rich List, and the working class can see who is dipping their hand in our pockets.

The top 1,000 have increased their worth by 10% in a year. In the same time, another 100,000 children fell into poverty - making 4.1 million, about 30% of all kids - according to the Department for Work and Pensions.

The top spot this year has been claimed by spiv-in-chief union-buster Jim Ratcliffe, net worth £21 billion. Back in 2013, the Ineos chair and majority owner used the livelihoods of thousands of workers as leverage to extract £134 million from the taxpayer for his oil refinery at Grangemouth.

In real terms, average wages are still lower than they were in 2007. The Tories have offered NHS workers a miserly below-inflation pay 'increase'. Wages are recovering slower than even after the Great Depression, according to the Trade Union Congress.

Meanwhile, at the top of the pile, capital gains tax is 28%, and corporate tax just 20% - both lower than the higher rates of income tax! For all their spiel about "making work pay," in Tory and Blairite Britain work is disincentivised for the super-rich.

They ferret away their ill-gotten gains in tax havens, where capital languishes until a profitable investment opportunity opens up for it.

Under Jeremy Corbyn's anti-austerity leadership, donations to Labour from the very wealthy have almost disappeared. Meanwhile, of the top 50 political donors in this year's Rich List, only one was not a Tory donor.

Capitalist politicians tell us that if we stand up to the billionaire 'Masters of the Universe' and demand they pay more, they will simply leave the country, taking thousands of jobs with them. But working people create all the wealth in society - the bosses just take it.

The Times has lauded the "triumph" of the "self-made" billionaires this year. "94% of most wealthy made own fortunes" in the top 1,000, it claims.

Really? Did Jim Ratcliffe make petrochemical products worth €2.3 billion profit last year himself? Or was that, in fact, the workers whose terms and conditions he battered in 2013 while relaxing on a £130 million yacht?

The answer to billionaire thieves threatening to leave is to nationalise their business empires under democratic workers' control and management. Britain is an enormously wealthy country. There is enough wealth to guarantee every person a decent standard of living - but not while supporting a billionaire class.

The Socialist Party fights for the nationalisation of the banks and top corporations as part of a democratic, socialist plan of production - and heavy, progressive taxes on the stolen fortunes of the super-rich.

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Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.

Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.

We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our Fighting Fund.