Coronavirus crisis: Super-rich will be fine when it's time to start paying off UK's vast debts – Jim Duffy

We cannot keep allowing those at the top to keep ‘marching on’ while the middle classes are squeezed hard, writes Jim Duffy

When Chancellor Rishi Sunak raises taxes to pay off Covid debts, who will bear the heaviest burden? (PIcture: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire)

I was flicking through my Spotify playlists this week to find something a bit more lively. Lockdown has killed off my love affair with Frank Sinatra, Meat Loaf and The Jam. I needed a bit more inspiration. Then up popped The Alarm.

Gosh, that took me back to my late teens – 68 Guns and all that. I listened in and enjoyed a good hour reminiscing over these old favourites. But one tune stood out. It’s called Marching On. And it made me think about life now and what I am seeing playing out in front of me. As we all try to get back on our feet again after this debilitating virus, there are many who are leaving us behind. Yes, while “main street” attempts to pay the bills each month “Wall Street” is marching on...

It makes makes me smile as I think about China right now. Not that I like the Communist Party over there one bit. While the Chinese people seem a decent, hard-working bunch, their leaders are money-grabbing, self-serving imperialists who want to make the world burn, while they profit. Glad I got that one off my chest. No, I smile at China as we look at it and think how lucky we actually are not to live there.

After all, who wants to be dictated to by a bunch of despots who run the whole operation for their own enrichment? Well, perhaps the current UK Government looks a bit like this. Who wants to live in a country where much of the press is demeaned to pure sensationalism and manipulated so much by its owners that the readers are addicted to clickbait? Try the Mail or the Sun for a week. And who wants to live in a country where multi-millionaires and billionaires can do what they want, get access to government officials at the click of a finger and ensure their tax arrangements are well looked after? Planning decisions for those whose with access to the old boys club? Sound familiar?

China is not for me, but does it actually feel any different from living in the UK?

Sure, we can protest and not get shot. Sod wearing a mask, eh? We can do what we want. Up to a point. And of course, no-one is breaking our doors down at 5am and removing people to prison camps. No-one is imposing laws that essentially kill off our rights to demonstrate against the government and overthrow a whole territory, aka Hong Kong.

But, while we have much to be happy about in terms of freedoms, there is still a massive divide between those with power and networks and ordinary white van man. And this should trouble us greatly.

The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has been hailed as a great saviour who staved off a massive economic shock by giving away free money to people and businesses. He came to the fore in his new role with big money bags. Of course, we loved him as he pumped billions into the system to keep staff paid, mortgages paid and whole industries afloat. But, the day of reckoning is here. And as I said, the UK “communist” party machine – or rather, the current attempt at government – is now telegraphing to us all that tax changes are on the way. The free money now has to be paid back. But, by whom?

Wall Street and the FSTE 100 are doing fine, thank you very much. Quantitive easing, or money printing to you and me, means that there is mucho liquidity in the system and the traders just love it. Who cares that dividends are down and businesses are about to dump a whole load of people into unemployment? Who cares that a recession is looming like a Texas super-cell tornado, brewing in the distance? Not them. They are making hay, while we are fed straplines on “potential” new taxes that the Treasury is “looking at”. White van man watch out!

And what about a wealth tax! A tax on the super rich. Those who fuel and rule the Tories? Not likely. Just look at Spain, there the wealth tax has been in place for years. They literally hide the money under the bed. Insurance polices have special clauses for “cash” in safes in houses. No, no, no, say the UK rich, we can’t have that.

And what about the much-mooted capital gains tax on house sales? That seems to be flavour of the month in the red tops. Do we really think for one minute the Tories will kill off the housing market that has made them who they are?

Champions of free enterprise... not on your life. No, my money is on taxing the upper-middle classes. They’re ripe for it. And this will leave the super-rich alone to get richer.

Things have to change. There is a big debt to square away in the UK, the EU and, of course, the USA, where Wall Street is booming, while Florida has huge death tolls as Covid-19 rages. Economies are on their knees and we have to react. But, we cannot keep allowing those at the top to keep on marching on while the middle classes get squeezed hard. There has never been a better time in the last 100 years to actually re-balance wealth, taxes and social equality.

Nicola Sturgeon knows this. This kind of idealogy or feeling runs through her bones. It’s why she came into politics.

Perhaps, Scotland can take a different route from the UK Government. Perhaps now is the time to decouple from Westminster and create a better tax system that levels the playing field, allowing the whole of Scotland to march on...

This could be once in a lifetime opportunity.

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