Rich List 2020 Reveals All
Every year the Sunday Times Rich List shows us how much more obscenely wealthy the millionaires and billionaires in Britain have become. But in 2020 it’s different. £54bn has been wiped off the value of the shares of the richest 1,000 since the pandemic struck. Oh, woe.
Top of the pops in 2020 is James Dyson. You’ve probably heard of him through his vacuum business. He’s ‘worth’ £16.2bn, up £3.6bn on last year. He owns 36,500 acres of land in England, which is more than the Queen. It’s not obvious when he visits his rolling acres, because, after being knighted for services to British exports, he moved his head office and main operations to Singapore
The 2020 issue puts Jim Ratcliffe at number 5, with assets of £12.15bn. He owns 60% of the shares in the chemical giant Ineos, formerly part of BP. He also owns two super-yachts, hotels, a football club in France and a cycling team Team Ineos, formerly Team Sky. Earlier this year Ratcliffe was knighted, presumable for the virtue of being very rich. He showed his gratitude by fleeing to Monaco so he wouldn’t have to pay UK tax.
Poor old Ratcliffe lost £6bn in paper wealth over the past 12 months, making him the biggest loser on the list. But we shouldn’t feel too sorry for him. He’s furloughed staff at his Pig hotel chain, so now we can pay to keep them alive. After all, it wouldn’t be fair for him to dip into his own pocket, would it, now he’s down to a measly £12bn? And he’s on the scrounge from the government for an emergency loan for the joint venture Petroineos, of which his Ineos is part-owner.
Others with the begging bowl outstretched include Stelios Haji –Ioannou of Easyjet, down to his last £1.75bn, and Richard Branson who wants £500m to save Virgin Atlantic, despite personal wealth of £3.6bn. Branson plans to cut 3,000 jobs with the airline while the Bamford family who own digger firm JCB have assets of £4,7bn but continue to furlough 4,500 of their workers – at our expense.
You may have noticed that some of these characters have been knighted for the virtue of filling their boots. But Bamford has been awarded a peerage for his philanthropic work. The object of his largesse is...the Tory Party. Last year he bunged them almost £4m, their top donor.
Sir Philip Green has been struggling a bit over recent years. But cheer up, he and his wife have still got £830m. They’re doing better than the 10,000 former employees of BHS who lost their jobs and 20,000 dependent on the company pension, The Greens looted the firm shamelessly and left it for dead. Like so many of these worthies they choose to live in a tax haven, in this case Monaco. Like many others on the list they are addicted to conspicuous consumption.
They own a 63 metre yacht, now called Lioness V and cost £32m. She can sleep up to 12 guests in 6 rooms, including: a master suite; 3 double cabins; 2 twin cabins; and accommodation for up to 19 crew. Nice. Mind you Ratcliffe is one up on them with two yachts. (Question: what does anyone do with two yachts?)
The Greens have taken a hit to their wealth in recent years. That doesn’t mean they’re on their uppers. They won’t have to sell the yacht, any more than Branson will have to mortgage his private island Necker in the British Virgin Islands. So does the disappearance of their wealth matter?
Though much of their stash consists of luxuries, most consists of shares. Shares represent part-ownership of corporations. What these shares are worth doesn’t depend on how much they could sell the assets the firms own at any point in time. Share prices go up and down depending on the income stream they gift their owners. They represent a claim on the value of other people’s work. That’s how modern capitalism exploits the working class.
One thing this sketch of the’ great and the good’ from the Rich List has shown so far is that they are not models of entrepreneurship. On the contrary they are ‘corporation bums’, shamelessly dependent on government handouts.
But how did they get rich in the first place? Takes the case of the Grosvenor family, including the present Duke of Westminster. They’re at number 10 in the list and they’re sitting on £10.29bn. They’ve been at the top of the list for a long, long time. What did they do to deserve all this? Their remote ancestor was a drinking buddy of William the Conqueror. He awarded the Grosvenors a big chunk of Cheshire. In the 18th century one predecessor made an advantageous marriage and got hold of Mayfair, the swankiest part of London. Virtue rewarded!
The glossy Rich List is full of fancy ads. But it also features some acerbic comments which are probably not intended to be shared with the likes of us. A section on political donations in the 2019 election is entitled, “It was the rich wot won it.” Before the 2019 election the super-rich were apparently worried about ‘Corbyngeddon’. The top 50 donors on the list alone contributed £35.5m, overwhelmingly to the Tories. Labour got just £5,000. As the Sunday Times comments, “The near £25m of cash from the 50 most politically committed Rich Listers gave Boris Johnson a decisive heft towards Downing Street.”
Political donations by the rich to the Tories are often compared with trade union support for Labour. But there is a fundamental difference, Unions take democratic decisions in consultation with their members on who to support. The rich evidently regard their ill-gotten gains as their own to do with as they please. They don’t consult the workers who create the wealth or even the shareholders in the firms they own. The Rich List outlines the corrupt symbiosis between the Conservatives and big business. They “offered a tiered donor structure from the Fastrack Club (annual membership £300) to the Leader’s Group (annual membership £50,000).” What rotten deals are cooked up at these cosy chats?
When people ask you about British democracy, and last year’s election, remind them -
“It was the rich wot won it”.
