Who wants to be a millionaire? Everyone, of course. But in London? Not really. Labour's plans to tax the rich until they bleed may have won votes, but it's had an all-too-predictable side-effect: the super-rich are all fleeing the country at lightning speed, flocking to sunnier, less hostile environments.
A report by investment adviser Henley & Partners says 9,500 billionaires are expected to leave the UK this year, more than double last year's record-breaking figure.
This is in stark contrast to most major European and other economies: Germany's wealthy grew by 15% over the same period, while the US's grew by 62%. The UK and Russia were the only two European countries to record an outflow of billionaires.
All public services are in total decline and the top 1% pay 30% of all income tax.
Goodbye, you say. Well, that's fine, except that all public services are in total decline and the top 1% pay 30% of all income tax, not to mention other taxes.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves' plans to target wealth creators with increases to capital gains tax, private equity tax and inheritance tax may sound appealing to the 9.2 million people of working age in the UK who are not working or looking for work, but someone has to bear the burden for everyone.
There was a good reason when Lord Mandelson said, unforgettable words, “We don't care if people get very rich, so long as they pay their tax.” It became a New Labour maxim, people didn't like it, but it worked. Even a small proportion of high earners leaving the country would have a devastating effect on the country's finances, which is why everyone else does the opposite and welcomes high earners with open arms.
Countries with better climates, security and health facilities are trying hard to attract the wealthy with tax incentives. Italy, for example, has a new tax law that actively targets the wealthy to relocate there.
Reeves was speaking at a Barclays finance forum at the Corinthia last week about the continuation of new laws making life harder for non-residents, which some in the banking industry see as financial self-destruction.
And that's not all. Penalising our private schools (yes, the ones mainly attended by the wealthy) with VAT would have a devastating effect on the reputation of the world's leading private schools and undermine their role as a magnet for the global elite to base themselves in the UK. A high VAT rate would force schools to shift away from accepting the most talented students and towards accepting those who can afford the fees, which would mean a severe decline in the quality of outcomes.
You may despise the wealthy and dream of a mass exodus of billionaires, but this country is already overburdened with record levels of debt and taxes.
The departure of the rich means less money for everything and everyone. We will be lonely without them.
Olivia Washington and Kit Harington
Dave Bennett
Slave Play has everything a play should have.
The hottest ticket in the West End right now is Jeremy O. Harris's “Slave Play,” a controversial black-only night. I saw it last week and found it challenging, exhilarating and thought-provoking. Three multiracial couples act out pornographic fantasies about southern slavery as a form of therapy, trying to rekindle desire in the non-white parts of their relationships.
As part of an interracial trilogy, Denzel Washington's daughter Olivia asks her husband, Kit Harington, pictured, to be a whip-wielding Southern slave master while she twerks and he makes her eat on the floor. These are her fantasies and concerns, not her husband's. Harris, a black queer playwright, has drawn attention not only for the paucity of voices like his in the theater world, but also for the norm-defying nature of his work. This is a brilliant piece of work, everything theater should be. Go see it.
Anna van Praag is the Evening Standard's chief content officer.
