Quality | 2010.01.29
Letters: Inequality must be tackled from top to bottom
The damning report on income inequality by Professor Hills ( Unequal Britain: richest 10% are now 100 times better off than the poorest , 27 January), makes extremely uncomfortable reading for anyone who wants a more equal society.
The results are sobering. One measure indicates that by 2008, Britain had reached the highest level of income inequality since soon after the second world war. The richest 10% are now 100 times better off than the poorest, with individuals in the top 1% of the population each possessing total household wealth of £2.6m or more. This is a wake-up call.
The growing gap between high earners and the rest of society is politically, socially and economically damaging and intolerable. While the Labour government has done a lot for those on the lowest incomes, it has been unable to reduce inequality, mainly because it has failed to halt the boom of wealth at the top. It has never been clearer that gross inequality damages not just those at the very bottom, but all within society.
This report must be a watershed moment. We can no longer afford to be intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich. We must not aspire to reduce the new top rate of tax as soon as possible. Instead we should tackle egregious pay at the top through a high pay commission, make the bankers\' windfall tax permanent and step up the commitment to a truly progressive taxation system.
Gavin Hayes , Neal Lawson , Joe Cox and Zoe Gannon Compass , John Battle MP , Clare Short MP , Richard Wilkinson University of Nottingham, Prof Kate Pickett University of York, Prof Sally Ruane De Montfort University , Heather Wakefield Unison , Ann Pettifor , Dr Martin Parker, Richard Murphy Tax Justice Network , Prof Adrian Sinfield The University of Edinburgh , Sunny Hundal Liberal Conspiracy, Professor Gregor Gall University of Hertfordshire, Mark Donne Fair Pay Network, Guy Palmer The Poverty Site, Will Straw Left Foot Forward, Prof Davina Cooper University of Kent, Sam Tarry Young Labour
• Professor John Hills\'s report on inequality has evoked reactions seeking to blame the present government for the widening of the gap and the increase in inequality in a whole range of areas, driven by the Conservative government of the 1980s and early 1990s.
It is worth reflecting that, in terms of the long-term challenge to turn these enormous problems around, no child over the age of 11 has yet benefited from Sure Start, the universal nursery programme or the Child Trust Fund; and that no child over 15 has yet experienced the full benefit of the literacy and numeracy programmes. These were all put in place in the first period of the Blair government. Perhaps someone, somewhere, in 2025 will be big enough to give credit for what this government has done and is still doing.
Labour, Sheffield Brightside
• There will never be anything approaching equality in this country until one political party has the courage to abolish private schools. While we continue to separate our children from the age of four on the basis of class, wealth and religion, the gap will never be reduced. Educate all our children together, and in a generation we\'d have a happier and healthier society.
Judith Knight
London
• Bob Diamond, with his multimillion-pound bonus, pontificates at Davos ( Report , January 27) on the disaster that will befall us if we impose realistic taxes on such incomes. If the £50m bonus paid to a top banker last year had instead been spread over 50,000 of the bank\'s lower-paid employees, £1,000 each, much would have found its way via the shops and factories to the jobcentres. Those thus taken off the unemployed register would spend their money too, winding up the process. Wealth doesn\'t trickle down – it bubbles up.
Bill Hyde
Offham, Kent
• The Red Tory agenda ( No equality in opportunity , 28 January) is flawed for presuming that there are "natural" differences among people that need to be cultivated and respected for the social value they provide. Such a view rests on a 19th-century conception of biology, with its sharp divide of nature and nurture. However, both the sciences and the technologies associated with life processes have now progressed to a point where it makes no sense to talk about what people "naturally are" without socioeconomic constraints. Rather, the sense in which socioeconomic differences continue to exist and matter is something that is within our control and for which we as a society are responsible. To address this matter merely by providing incentives for the rich to feel virtuous by charitably contributing to the welfare of the poor is both politically wishful and scientifically backward.
Professor of sociology, University of Warwick
• The Tories\' latest idea of local levels of welfare benefit ( Councils could get power to set benefits , 28 January) would mark a return to the days of "going on the parish" as councils raced to cut payments either to save money or drive the poor into a neighbouring district. This isn\'t a proposal to pay down the deficit; it\'s an attempt to dismantle a key part of the postwar welfare state.
D Cameron
Stoke-on-Trent
• The results of the survey into British attitudes ( Report , 26 January) present a real cause for concern. On the same day as new figures from Save the Children show that child poverty is getting worse, we learn that the number of people who wish to see the inequality gap narrowed is also tailing off. It\'s not surprising that in times of financial hardship people\'s attention focuses on their loved ones. But it\'s a major shock to all those who campaign on behalf of those 1.7 million children who are living in severe poverty. If this survey holds true, their position is more vulnerable than ever. Reducing inequalities is everyone\'s business. If we fail, we will all have to face the financial and social consequences for decades.
Anne Longfield
Chief executive, 4Children
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/j[...]equality-tackled-top-to-bottom
