Ed's tax policy: soak the rich!

Bash the banks. Hammer the rich. Squeeze the wealthy until the pips squeak. That seems to pretty well sum-up Ed’s entire fiscal policy if his recent effusions are anything to go by.

 

By convenient timing the Sunday Times has just published its ‘Rich List’. What becomes clear immediately is that the people at the top of the pile are industrialists, manufacturers, retailers and other wealth-and-job creators. The idle rich are nowhere to be seen.

 

So who will Ed target? The deserving or the undeserving, the workers or the drones? Or all of the above?

 

There are some fabulously wealthy people around who neither make nor create.

 

There’s the young chap who plays the fastest computer game aka Formula 1 motor racing. He’s worth a cool £88 million. But he’s a tax exile in Monaco, so you can’t catch him, Ed.

 

Then there’s the footballers earning between £150,000 and £300,000 a week to kick a plastic ball around a field for 90 minutes a week. Top of this league is Wayne Rooney, worth £86 million, although to be fair, his missus chipped in £14 million.

 

A guy who is British when winning and Scottish when losing has amassed £48 million from hitting a little white ball over a net, but Ms Sturgeon will take his tax donation. And there’s the Irishman who has £38 million in the piggy bank from hitting a smaller white ball around a field full of holes. Ed won’t get any of his wedge either because he is domiciled in the USA.

 

Top of the Premier League is Becks. He trousered £30 million last year to add to his £240 million pile.

 

So are you going after Rooney, Ed, or does he live in a Labour marginal?