RICH LIST 2018: enough to make you sick!

The capitalist rich keep their snouts in the trough at all times

The Sunday Times is about to publish its 30th annual Rich List, spelling out the grotesque greed at the top of society. 

This report produces the league table of personal wealth for the richest 1,000 people in the UK. 

An important detail not known to many of those who read it: the figures of billions and millions amassed by those sitting at the top of the wealth mountain doesn't even take account of what these individuals have in the bank! For mere mortals, any modest savings in the bank are included in calculations for miserly top-up benefits or other entitlements. But the rich flaunt their wealth without having to add their bank balance to the total; so they're even richer than the Sunday Times Rich List says! 

Why does all this matter? When we're told there's not enough money in society to pay an immediate £10-an-hour minimum wage to all workers over 16 (rising to match inflation since that figure was agreed by the unions 43 long months ago!), or to meet equal pay claims for women workers, or guarantee a living pension after a lifetime's contribution to society, or invest in free public transport, a modern NHS, top-class education or other services... when the rich government of and for the rich tell us that, don't forget the Rich  List! 

Two Scotlands in the One Nation

For now, ponder two stark figures amongst many in the 2018 Rich List, as it directly impacts Scotland. 

We now 'enjoy' the company of 11 billionaires - whose combined personal wealth (excluding their bank accounts, remember!) totals £16.2billion. That's over half the entire annual budget of the Scottish government for the entire Scottish population in the hands of 11 billionaires. 

And just looking at the top 3 alone, we see their personal wealth INCREASED last year by £920million!

Richest family in Scotland quaff obscene sums

Whisky Galore... for the Few

Glenn Gordon and family guzzled a net increase of £202m from their whisky and gin empire. 

John and Kiran Shaw made the Gordons look like paupers, with a wealth increase last year of £606m from their pharmaceutical company, Biocon, making a sickening profit from the treatment of cancer, diabetes and autoimmune diseases. 

Sir Ian Wood and family may have observed crises in both the oil and fishing industry in recent times, but managed to scrape together a mere £112m EXTRA in the past twelve months. 

In the land of a million living below the poverty line, 52% of them working to stay poor, these figures are obscene. In the nation where the equivalent of the entire population of Dundee last year relied on emergency food parcels from food banks to avert hunger; where people on benefits can't exist and are driven to the edge; and where energy-rich Scotland condemns at least a million families to fuel poverty, these displays of wealth are grotesque.

Demand a Maximum Income

Alongside battling for an immediate £10 minimum wage, and some job and income stability through a legally guaranteed 16-hour minimum working week, we need to popularize the demand for a maximum income, to start to close the yawning gap between the billionaires and the billions, the plundering rich and the rest of us. 

Let's illustrate the advantages of an initial 10:1 ratio between the maximum allowable income and the national minimum wage; the policy which the SSP stands for, and which I proposed and won support for at Usdaw union national conference last week. 

If we use the current (miserly) £7.83 minimum wage for those aged over 25, that would make the maximum income £78.30 an hour - hardly penury! Assuming a 35-hour week, it would allow the richest to earn up to £142,502 a year; not exactly making them scream in agony! 

Again, if we look at the three richest families in Scotland, and very generously assume a total of ten of them are 'working' adults, that would still allow three families a combined income last year of £1.42million... instead of the £920million they actually got! It would leave £918.58million to spend on the rest of us. 

Without even the full socialist measure of democratic public ownership of the fabulous wealth these three families preside over - to tackle production of green energy and a fully-funded NHS, amongst other things - just this one modest step of a maximum income could begin to transform working-class families' lives.

Which Families Do You Side With?!

Read the Rich List for yourself, and before your blood stops boiling over, commit yourself to battle for measures that will enhance the lives of about 3 million families in Scotland, at the expense of the richest three families and their gluttonous cohort of capitalists and speculators.