Read this excerpt from the press today:
“Rishi Sunak has said he is “not bothered” by Labour’s criticism of his wealthy family’s tax arrangements and thinks the UK has “moved beyond” judging people on their money.”
There are various on-line polls asking whether you agree or disagree with his comments. My first reaction was simple: I disagree. But it’s more than that because – and here I go, writing like the politicians I so despise – it’s the wrong question. No one should judge people solely on their money. But when you’re a prime minister, who kept his US Green Card even when he became an MP and whose wife deliberately avoided UK tax by retaining her non dom status, then surely you have some obligation upon you to pay your fare share of tax and to be transparent about it.
You know where this always ends up when I’m blogging and that’s the food bank because some people, like the odious Lee Anderson, the vice chair of the Tory party, have said some pretty awful things about food bank users, unquestionably judging them. I appreciate that Anderson is a card-carrying idiot but given the position he occupies then his views must surely be reflective of the party Sunak leads.
I have written often enough about why people come to see our food bank and there are lots of reasons, but we never judge them on that alone, or on anything else. Sunak should not simply be judged on the bulging size of his bank account but it’s perfectly fair to point out that he is the richest man in the House of Commons and the richest prime minister ever and here he is knowingly making poor people poorer. It really is that blunt. When Sunak is swimming lengths in his private swimming pool or doing a session in his private home gymnasium, millions are going without food. That’s not judging Sunak, whatever that means. It’s stating the bleeding obvious.
And it’s making it clear that we have a lot of haves, a lot of have nots and an increasing number of have-so-bloody-much they have no idea how ordinary people live their lives. Like Sunak. I am hoping he doesn’t know how ordinary, and indeed poor people live their lives because if he actually does, he’s an even worse person than I thought he was.
We probably give desperate people around £30 of food when they come and see us, maybe for larger families a bit more than that. Sunak and his wife are worth around three quarters of a billion quid. I don’t judge him on his money, although he made plenty of it betting against the British economy in the worldwide financial crash of 2008, but I do judge him on how he is making life horrible for millions of people. If he’s “not bothered” about criticism, he should be.
