[Music]
Comrades, this is a message from the
poll bureau. Commasar good speaking here
from Leicester Square Oblast. Pig
production, pig iron production is up
again. And I'm delighted to give you our
latest missive here from the Prescidium
where we are in favor of 100%
inheritance tax, compulsory
nationalization of all land, and really
winding all right-wing Twitter up. Yes,
this was the story that we did yesterday
where I just posited just an idea that
maybe at a time of profound
intergenerational unfairness at a time
when the government was desperately
searching for new tax revenue at a
moment actually and this is the bit that
really really I found curious. at a
moment where actually I made an argument
which was to say that we should be
reducing taxes on everybody so they
would have more money in their pockets
on their income on the work that they're
doing dayto-day and that should be
funded by an increase and I was being a
bit provocative by saying 100% but I
said I wouldn't mind if it was 100%
impractical I appreciate but I wouldn't
mind at all if it was 60% 70% 88%
inheritance taxing those big windfalls
from that huge property boom that we've
had over the last 40 50 is to fund tax
cuts for people to earn money more earn
more money and keep it in their pockets.
I thought this was a right-wing
argument, a liberal argument, a liberal
argument steeped in the great heroes of
British liberalism, John Stewart Mill,
Thomas Payne, Andrew Cariegi, the
richest man in the 19th century who
thought that inheritance taxes were were
a good idea because it made children who
received inheritance indolent and lazy.
And then I looked at my Twitter inbox
and I'm afraid I cannot share, dear LBC
listener, I cannot share in any great
detail the contents of that because I
will be taken off the air by Offcom for
blaspheming and bad language in about 12
seconds flat. But just to give you an
idea when you can fill in the blanks,
you've been made to look like a clown.
You sad, pathetic little man. Lewis,
you're an absolute tit. You are an
effing idiot, you lad. You're the weak
one. Lewis, what planet are you on with
inheritance? Proper effing idiot. You
are dumb as f W word. Stupid C word.
You're an effing grub. You don't have
kids, right? You're a homosexual loser.
Communist. I feel sorry for your mom.
Thick C. Commie P. You little entitled
idiot. Communist. Communist. Communist.
Proper tosser you are. Well, I'd agree
with that. But anyway, on and on and on
it goes. And that's just And those are
some of the nicer ones, ladies and
gentlemen. And this has got me thinking.
This has got me thinking. What on earth
is all this about? How sensitive the
online right has become to a different
sort of idea. One that I do not
understand how it could be quite so
controversial. And indeed, even my own
LBC colleague here, Ian Dale, was rather
irritated by my suggestion. And uh he
actually wanted me to come on his show
last night. Unfortunately, I had other
plans, so I couldn't do so. But he
nonetheless decided to castigate me,
dearan, for my idea. Here is um an
opening section from his show last night
where he took me to task for the idea of
a 100% inheritance tax.
>> I can't express how angry I am at that
kind of attitude. He uses words like
progressive and radical, which is what
the left always do when what they mean
is higher taxes. That they have no
original thought in their heads apart
from putting up taxes and taking
hard-earned money off people. It doesn't
matter whether you have whether you're
leaving uh 200,000 400,000 800,000 to
your kids or whoever you decide to leave
it to. You have earned that money.
You've paid tax on that money already
and Alan Lewis wants to take the whole
lot of off you. Um I think it's out an
outrageous suggestion. The fact that
inheritance tax is already 40% over what
325,000 I think it is. I mean that that
is criminal enough but to want to put it
up to 100%. I mean that is legalized
robbery
and and if that is the way that the left
is thinking in this country then God
help us all is all I can say because the
their answer to everything is to tax
people. Now I I don't object to paying
taxes. I think well we all have a duty
to pay taxes. That that is the way that
government works. But to pretend that
the government can spend your
hard-earned money that you've worked all
your life to uh earned to have
the the thought that the government can
spend that money better than your kids
can is for the birds and even if they
could they shouldn't have a right to.
I mean, have we have we lost all sense
of perspective on this in the I mean,
effectively what they want to see is the
government becoming effectively the quai
parent to everybody controlling
everything where individuals don't have
a say in anything. Now, okay, like
Lewis, I'm exaggerating to make a point,
but I I think it is an absolutely
criminal idea that people's money should
be taken off them in in this way. Um he
he says we have an aristocracy of
wealth. Again, a trite phrase, but what
does it actually mean? What it means is
he wants to penalize people who've been
successful
and accumulating wealth. Generally, you
you've done something to do that. Yes,
there are some people who just do it by
betting on the stock exchange or
whatever, but most people if they
accumulate wealth, they do it through
their own endeavors.
They take risks. They form companies.
They employ people. They pay corporation
tax. They pay income tax. They pay VAT.
They pay council tax. They pay all of
these taxes throughout their life. And
then they're expected to forfeit any
wealth that they've earned and not pass
it on to their children. What kind of
country is that? That's becoming
Venezuela. that's becoming like Cuba. I
don't want to live in a country like
that. Now, I have a huge disrespect for
Lewis. I really really do. Um I if I
listen to the news agents, he he is what
he has got his finger on the pulse of
British politics in a way that I think
most political commentators don't. And
I'm always interested to hear his
interpretation of events. And I get that
he admitted he's kind of exaggerating to
make a point. But the very fact that
he's even suggested this now, it will
put it into a lot of people's heads and
think, "Oh, yeah, that's that's quite
reasonable. Let's punish the rich."
Does he not remember the wise words of
Abraham Lincoln, you don't make the poor
richer by making the rich poorer? Well,
some warm words there from my ever
respectful colleague Ian Dale, uh, who,
uh, I think it's fair to say didn't love
my idea yesterday. Uh, and before I say
what I'm about to say, likewise, I have
a huge amount of respect for Ian. But
you know what's coming, don't you? Where
to begin with that, Ian? I almost wish
I'd canceled my dinner plan just so you
hadn't been able to splurge that
absolute nonsense all last night. Making
taking on an argument I did not even
make. Thought this is so meta, isn't it?
We're just making sort of LBC content,
begotting LBC content. Where to begin?
Um, you've earned that money, says Ian.
Therefore, you have the right to do what
you like with it. Well, so have I. So
have I on my income. So have you on your
income? I can say that about your income
tax. You say that you had the government
has no right to tax my or his wealth or
inheritance. Why can I not say that
about income? What's the difference?
It's just a different priority. And my
priority is to incentivize work, not the
right to inherit something.
Ian says it's legalized robbery. Why
isn't all tax then legalized robbery?
Why is ink tax on income somehow
superior to tax on inheritance? I didn't
hear a single moral or conceptual
argument to flesh that out. If this is
the way the left is thinking, he said,
"God help. God help us." Well, from the
reaction to this over the last 24 hours,
I would say the problem is not that this
is what the left is thinking. I never
claimed that it was. I actually don't
think it's a leftwing idea. I think it's
quite a right-wing idea in lots of ways.
reducing tax on income to incentivize
work, not incentivizing handouts. But um
Ian says that the problem, if that's
what the left is thinking, God help us.
The problem is the right isn't thinking.
The right isn't thinking at all. They're
just dismissing something entirely out
of hand without even actually thinking
about whether it fits into their wider
ideology.
Penalize people, Ian says, who have been
successful. The idea would penalize
people who've been successful. No, my
idea would be to incentivize people who
are successful, who are creating jobs in
the real economy, who are creating
businesses by reducing tax on work and
labor. My idea is to penalize people who
receive a windfall for doing nothing to
deserve it, nothing of their own. They
just expect to inherit. How is that
penalizing someone who has been
successful? That's penalizing someone
who has done nothing to deserve
something. Most people, he says, who
accumulate wealth do so through their
own endeavors. I agree and I want to
incentivize that. I want a wealth
generating economy. I want a dynamic
economy. I actually think this is the
idea that helps save capitalism, not
destroy it. But my point is precisely
that. Heaten says most people who
own endeavors. My idea targets people
who have done nothing through their own
endeavors, who are just expecting to
inherit, who have a windfall. They have
not generated the wealth. They are the
recipient of the wealth. That is the
difference. And he says, what kind of
country is that? Well, I'll tell you,
Ian, it's the country we had. It's
Britain. It's not Venezuela. It's
Britain in the 1920s when we'd
introduced estate duties to pay for the
First World War. or it's the Britain we
had in 1950s and 1960s when we paid for
the Second World War. These are not
radical ideas. These are old ideas. It
is simply that too much of British
politics dismisses them out of hand
without really thinking about them. I
would go back to Andrew Cariegi, the
great 19th century entrepreneur at one
time the richest man in the world in the
19th century. What did he say about
inheritance tax? He said, "Of all forms
of taxation, this seems the wisest. Men
who continue hoarding great sums all
their lives would be compelled to
distribute their hordes during their
lives for the public good. By taxing
estates heavily at death, the state
marks its condemnation of the selfish
millionaire's unworthy life." And he
went on saying that inheritance was bad
for the parent and the child. The parent
who leaves his son enormous wealth
usually deadens the talents and energies
of the son tempts him to lead a less
useful and less worthy life than he
otherwise would. I would as soon as
leave to my son a curse as the almighty
dollar.
Couldn't have put it better myself. And
the fact of the matter is is that I was
being provocative of course yesterday. I
was talking about 100% inheritance tax.
I don't think that's very practical. But
as I said, I wouldn't mind it and myself
because I believe that people should
rise and fall by their own endeavors,
not what someone did three or four
generations a dirt ago. And we are
living in an e deeply unequal society.
Ian asked, "What do I mean by an
aristocracy of wealth?" Saying it's a
trite phrase. It's not a tr phrase at
all. It's the reality of 21st century
Britain and indeed the United States.
What do I mean by an aristocracy of
wealth? I'm in a society where the
richest 10% of households own 45% of the
wealth, where the poorest 50% own less
than 10% of the wealth. I mean a society
where over 100 billion is being passed
down in inheritances and gifts each
single year. Where over 50% of UK wealth
is now held by the over 55s, meaning
younger generations are increasingly
reliant on inheritance rather than
savings. savings they cannot build up
because they are forced into higher and
higher rate tax bans partly because our
tax system is completely skewed. Our tax
system is favored and is geared towards
older, richer people getting to do
whatever they like because they think
that they've been completely generated
their wealth completely single-handedly.
Well, they haven't. They've been part of
an environment and a country which has
given them a great deal. its
infrastructure, its schooling, its
health system, all of the things that a
21st century democracy provides. It has
to be paid for. And also, you have to
have a sense of intergenerational
equity. And I'm sorry, but
intergenerational equity cannot just
mean that you get to decide to give all
your money to your kid when you die.
Because you know what? If you believe
that, you cannot believe in a
meritocracy. You cannot believe in
equality of opportunity. Because what
you end up with is huge pockets of
wealth being distributed to fewer and
fewer people and everybody else cannot
keep up. No matter how clever you are,
no matter how smart you are, no matter
how hard you work, you will never ever
be able to keep up with the top. Thomas
Pikaty, the French economist, wrote
about this 10 years ago in 2014 in his
book capital. And his point was then, as
it is now, and it's got worse since that
the early 21st century economy is
looking more and more like the 19th
century economy. It is looking like
we've got a world where capital just
begets capital. Wealth begets wealth and
wealth and wealth and more of the
economy is dedicated to wealth and the
extension of that wealth rather than
income. And the workers, people without
wealth cannot catch up. That is what I'm
saying and what I'm trying to draw
attention to. Now it's perfectly fine if
you have a different point of view and I
can understand that. What I cannot
understand, I must say, is the I would
say uh certainly the invective and the
strength of feeling about it. But maybe
I'm just weird and odd, and that's
absolutely fine. I don't mind. What do
you think? What am I missing here?