Far less. In the UK half of all wealth is owned by the top 10% but there is very little concentration in the top 1% compared with the USA and other nations like Italy, Russia and China. Also, the degree of wealth inequality has mostly remained consistent for the last 10-15 years.

Another factor to consider is that for the top 10% (which in the UK you are in if you earn more than £52,000) hold around 50% of their wealth in pensions (which are taxed) and around 32% in properties on average.

Have a look at ONS data to back up what I’ve said. https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dvc1727/Fig2/datadownload.xlsx

I still do believe that there is a better balance to be found with tax and wealth, but I’m less convinced that the answer is solely based on going after a 0.1% of wealthy.

agree, but a reminder that the top 1% pay 30% of the taxes the treasury receives.

fair. US debt to GDP seems to be around 100-120%[1] whereas in the UK there was briefly a spike of debt to 100% of GDP[2].

As a much smaller nation whose currency isn’t used as a world trade mechanism, britain devalue its currency too much, so there are fewer economic levers to pull when managing debt.

[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/united-states/debt-to-gdp-ratio [2] https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/uk-debt-hits-100-of-gdp-adding-to-rachel-reeves-headache/ar-AA1qSNYF

the thing is, it’s a gap between the money the government is spending and the amount of money it gets through taxes and other incomes each year.

So it’s money that has to be borrowed from folks, every year to keep things going as they are. And each time that money is borrowed it needs interest paid on it which makes the problem worse. Especially with the high interest rates around the world.

So british people are working hard, paying their taxes and a percentage of those taxes is going towards servicing debt that has been built up, by poor spending decisions in the past.

It’s like payday loans for governments. you’ve either got to get spending under control, make more money somehow (tricks in the car park or maybe sell crack) or eventually reach the end of the road.

me typing “sudo !!” instead of rewriting the shell command undoes this.

same in Newcastle. Hundreds out with flags and signs. A festival atmosphere.

papers gots to have some drama to print headlines on tomorrow.

“government refuses to commit to £2.5bn unfunded spend on this occasion” doesn’t quite hit the mark

jokes on them I already sent in my postal vote

a pretty grafana dashboard? peak web traffic looks a lot nicer than i thought!

go on, squeeze in one more unelected prime minister before the election!

give them a break - it’s taking all their time, money and energy to lobby for cheap, high quality, long range, compact vehicles made in Asia to be banned from the US or tariffed into oblivion.

Theresa May is stepping down. Liz Truss sadly remains although we’ll see what the general election brings.