Am I Meant To Care About The Rich List? It Gets Harder To Stomach Every Year

Oh look – the Sunday Times’ Rich List is out.

I am sure the fact that some billionaires are leaving the UK matters somehow (though some have likely quit the UK after their “non-dom” status was removed; “non-doms” never paid UK tax on their overseas earnings anyway). 

Perhaps I should have something to say about how the King’s private wealth has ballooned from £30 million to £640 million in the last year; something other than “typical.”

I know I should be angry that, as Patriotic Millionaires UK writes, ”£772 billion, held by just 350 families, would cover the total cost of the UK’s annual healthcare spend three times over” – and I am, deeply. 

But honestly? Reading the news just made me sad, then hopeless, then nauseous, then numb. 

It is very, very hard to care about (or even digest) the financial lives of millionaires and billionaires when so many of us are struggling – just to benefit those exact people’s ever-growing wealth. 

The list gets harder to read every year 

Oxfam says that global billionaire wealth surged by $2 trillion in 2024 alone while the World Bank’s data says poverty has remained largely the same since 1990.

60% of global billionaire wealth comes from inheritance, they add (though not a billionaire, check out the King’s personal wealth increase in a single year). 

It’s not just the 1%. Half of first-time buyers in the UK get help from the bank of mum and dad, estate agency Savills recently suggested. 

Meanwhile, one in 10 Brits has no savings at all; the Equality Trust says that the “UK’s wealth inequality is much more severe than income inequality,” with the richest 20% having five times more income than the poorest.

Wealth begets more wealth, which in turn encourages more inequality.

To matter, our money has to be relative, meaning that it is not enough for working people to earn more (though we generally aren’t) – the rich need to have proportionally less to stop hoarding the assets like real estate we need to live.

It is hard to see a way out of this mess, which is getting worse, without (as Patriotic Millionaires puts it) “properly taxing this wealth, to invest in our much-loved country.” 

Instead, though, the Prime Minister seems more interested in mimicking the previous government’s most extreme anti-immigration rhetoric and slashing the benefits of ordinary people than tackling wealth inequality at its source (which, to be fair, is a trend that’s been happening for decades). 

No wonder I can’t bring myself to care that billionaires are allegedly “fleeing”

Robert Watts, compiler of the Rich List, said that, “Our billionaire count is down and the combined wealth of those who feature in our research is falling.” We’re down nine – 156 to last year’s 164)

“We are also finding fewer of the world’s super-rich are coming to live in the UK,” he added. 

But whether that’s down to Rachel Reeves’ policy or a vague sense that the increasingly underfunded UK is simply too grim to live in is besides the point – do nine billionaires really make such a difference?

Some debate whether billionaires are even good for our economy to begin with.

Instead of exhausting, demoralising, and frankly bleak Rich Lists, I’m with Patriotic Millionaires – we should, “Prioritise the interests of Britain’s true wealth creators - our ordinary hardworking families, small businesses, entrepreneurs, teachers, health and other public sector workers...

“These people are the backbone of the British economy, many of whom haven’t seen a pay rise in 15 years. Our Government should treat the Rich List as the smelling salt it needs, wake up, and tax the super-rich.”