Boris Johnson thinks the super rich are a put upon minority

Written By: - Date published: 12:36 pm, November 26th, 2013 - 21 comments
Categories: class war - Tags:

Boris Johnson and muppet

From the you must be out of your freaking mind file comes this gem from England.  Boris Johnson thinks that the upper rich are a put upon bullied minority and that they deserve our thanks and gratitude.

He is not talking about any old wealthy individual but “people who have so much money they can fly by private jet, and who have gin palaces moored in Puerto Banus, and who give their kids McLaren supercars for their 18th birthdays and scour the pages of the FT’s “How to Spend It” magazine for jewel-encrusted Cartier collars for their dogs.”

Presuming that we are talking about the top 1% of the United Kingdom’s population we are talking about a small group that controls an estimated quarter of the country’s wealth.  This level of inequality is near the top of the world’s list although well short of the United States’ equivalent estimate of 40%.

Johnson goes on:

[T]he latest data suggest that we should be offering them humble and hearty thanks. It is through their restless concupiscent energy and sheer wealth-creating dynamism that we pay for an ever-growing proportion of public services. The top one per cent of earners now pay 29.8 per cent of all the income tax and National Insurance received by the Treasury. In 1979 – when Labour had a top marginal rate of 83 per cent tax after Denis Healey had earlier vowed to squeeze the rich until the pips squeaked – the top one per cent paid only 11 per cent of income tax. Now, the top 0.1 per cent – about 29,000 people – pay an amazing 14.1 per cent of all taxes.

Nor, of course, is that the end of their contribution to the wider good. These types of people are always the first target of the charity fund-raisers, whether they are looking for a new church roof or a children’s cancer ward. These are the people who put bread on the tables of families who – if the rich didn’t invest in supercars and employ eau de cologne-dabbers – might otherwise find themselves without a breadwinner. And yet they are brow-beaten and bullied and threatened with new taxes, by everyone from the Archbishop of Canterbury to Nick Clegg.

Of course the fact that the uber wealthy pay so much tax, if true, is only because their share of the country’s income is so extraordinarily large.  And if reports of a twenty trillion pound transfer of wealth to tax havens are even half true then the English wealthy’s tax largesse is much smaller than it should be.

Johnson is of course expressing a world view that the uber wealthy should be lauded and thanked for their parsimonious sharing of the world’s wealth with the rest of us, that support for the poor and for our health system should be voluntary and that workers should be thankful for what they are given.

He also thinks that their wealth is a recognition of their innate skills and worth as human beings and not the consequence of an economic order that is in bad shape.  And he shows his preference for a feudal system when he advocates that the top ten taxpayers should be given automatic knighthoods.

Johnson’s comments have been met by an array of responses but perhaps the clearest response came from student activists People’s Assembly Against Austerity from King’s College, London who said “Boris Johnson has suggested that the super rich are an oppressed minority. These people just don’t get it, do they?”

21 comments on “Boris Johnson thinks the super rich are a put upon minority ”

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  1. tricledrown 1
    26 November 2013 at 12:46 pm

    This is just pure tory propaganda this message has been pushed by right wing think tanks for a long time.
    New poser boy same old message .
    Enough is Enough.
    Poor uber rich people just a distraction so they can carry on
    The compulsive obsesive disorder of hoarding more wealth than is needed .
    Greed!

  2. shorts 2
    26 November 2013 at 12:59 pm

    the sooner the people rise and cull these uber rich buffoons and their fawning fanbase the better

    for they have no manners, no class and no empathy

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/25/christmas-selling-things-nobody-wants

  4. amirite 4
    26 November 2013 at 1:10 pm

    Ah the pains of the ‘deserving’ class, my little bleeding leftie heart feels for them.

    Yeah right.

  5. Phil 5
    26 November 2013 at 1:39 pm

    xox
    I reckon Boris was taking p.

  6. Tim 6
    26 November 2013 at 1:58 pm

    Just as well the English are good at inventing words and phrases. BUFFOON springs to mind, as does Mad Hatters … nincompoop … etcetera even

  7. infused 7
    26 November 2013 at 4:22 pm

    Pretty sure he’s high most of the time. Good to watch speaking.

  8. Naturesong 8
    26 November 2013 at 4:32 pm

    I reckon he’s awesome.
    Definitely welcome to any party at my house.

    But mayor of a large city?
    You’d have to be insane to give him any position of power or responsibility.

    Except … maybe event organiser for a student union?
    …but have someone else sign the cheques.

  9. Foreign Waka 9
    26 November 2013 at 6:09 pm

    On the day the super rich have stopped hunger, child labor and abuse, burning, stoning and other forms of deaths and mutilations for women, endless greed and the connected destruction of the planet, wars and terror on the unsuspected because of the grip for resources – the list can go on….. then, and only then will I be grateful and give respect they think they deserve.

  10. greywarbler 10
    26 November 2013 at 6:25 pm

    Priceless. You couldn’t put a value on such crass backwardness and myopia. First your wealthy manipulate the economy so that jobs are lost and money doesn’t reach to the smallest places in the regions and people are out of work and get not enough money to pay tax on. Then the true beneficiaries of all that laxness, that skewed, unhealthy behaviour leading to low vitality in the economy, start a bleating criticism by its beneficiaries, the wealthy and assured.

  11. CnrJoe 11
    26 November 2013 at 6:26 pm

    Good grief – he’s talking about hoarders

  12. BrucetheMoose 12
    26 November 2013 at 6:50 pm

    I wouldn’t take too much seriously from a bloke with hair like that.

  13. Will@Welly 13
    26 November 2013 at 8:25 pm

    Monty Python announce a “come back” series of concerts. Boris Johnson auditions as the opening act – Monty Python need a serious idiot, John Key is plainly too stupid. Although his version of the triple-gripple handshake at the 2011 Rugby World Cup did put him momentarily in the running.

  14. rob 14
    26 November 2013 at 9:53 pm

    I thought Monty Python was serious satire/comedy
    Key?? While he is a clown he doesn’t speak well does he ?
    The subtilty that is MP would fly over him and let’s be honest he wouldn’t be able to get on the trot advise from CT!

  15. Kevin Welsh 15
    26 November 2013 at 11:51 pm

    25% of the wealth but only 14% of the tax?

    Clearly not being squeezed enough…

  16. blue leopard (Get Lost GCSB Bill) 16
    27 November 2013 at 12:09 am

    That Boris article really takes the cake.

    If it was satire it would be really very funny

    “If that is the case, and it really is true that having stupendous sums of money is very far from the same as being happy, then surely we should stop bashing the rich. ” – Boris

    What a pity Boris & his advisors Crosby & Textor didn’t show similar attempts at compassion toward those who have no jobs and poor wages due to the appalling political approaches Boris and his mates pursue and stop bashing them and become motivated to sort out the real ills of the world.

    Unbelievably ridiculous article.
    And not the first utter nonsense I’ve read from that quarter.
    Perhaps Boris has missed his calling
    What a clown.

  17. Johnm 17
    27 November 2013 at 10:12 am

    Here’s the Artist Taxi Driver’s take on this Mega Buffoon ex member of the Bullingdon Club. Boris Johnson:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5dGRYj9JUs

    ” This is neo-feudalism. Banks are playing the role of the old feudalistic landlords as we pay them for access to all money and land. The super rich = The idle rich. They are not wealth creators they are wealth extractors, it is the people who create all the real wealth and value. It’s a con, a rigged game.”

  18. Abi 18
    27 November 2013 at 12:37 pm

    If they’re so oppressed, why can’t they do what they advocate for the rest of us and pull themselves up (or down) by their bootstraps to achieve equality — you know, give away all that excess cash that’s making them such unfortunate put-upon targets?

  19. captain hook 19
    27 November 2013 at 2:35 pm

    once upon a time rich people competed to see who could put up the biggest edifice.
    now they just need the money to browbeat their bankers and financial consultants and get their asses kissed.
    oh and bribe their realtives to like them.