The saviour of the poor
15 September 2018, 21:02 | Updated: 15 September 2018, 21:11
Boris Johnson has set out his vision for Government, at a black tie gala in Washington.
The ex-Bozo of the FO said his top priority as PM would be social mobility.
He said that with a straight face while wearing a bow-tie and a dinner jacket.
Those poor people need social mobility, he announced – they need to get more mobile, they need to stop standing there and get a lick on and bring over the champagne, this glass is empty.
Asked for his top priority for Britain, Mr Johnson said: 'Social mobility. If you think back to the great achievements of the Thatcher era, it was about helping people to seize control of their own destiny.
'It was about buying shares or buying their own homes … We need to recover that momentum.
'One of the reasons people voted to Leave was because they felt they were not getting a fair suck of the sauce bottle, as they say. People are stuck in entry-level jobs and they're not progressing.' : 'We're not focusing on those issues, we're not helping people enough.
'People are not being made to feel needed enough. And it's a serious problem.'
Boris Johnson class warrior – a millionaire of aristocratic stock who thinks that £250,000 a year for one 1,000 word newspaper column a week, that he dashes off in half an hour, is “chicken feed”, a man who was a member of the most superior club in the most superior school in the land has found, late in life, a passionate urge for equality.
Has he expressed this burning desire before, or did it come to him during dinner?
As for Margaret Thatcher allowing people to seize control of their destiny, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, in their 'Two Decades of Income Inequality in Britain: The Role of Wages, Household Earnings and Redistribution' said that after increasing sharply through the 1980s, income inequality in Britain has fallen across most of the distribution over the past two decades, although incomes towards the very top have continued to pull away.
In other words, the 1980's saw a massive increase in income inequality, when a certain M Thatcher was in charge.
In the 1980's the income of the top 1% grew massively against everyone else's income and the bottom 99% flat lined – all the increased income created by the work of the 100% went to the top 1%.
Wealth inequality is far worse than income inequality, of course. The richest 1% have vastly more of the wealth of the country than they do the income of the country.
The same study says, coincidentally, that there was a period of relatively “inclusive” growth from 1997-2004, which happened to coincide with the prime ministership of one Tony Blair.
The only other period of relatively evenly spread out growth in the past 20 years happened during the great recession, when almost everyone took a hit.
It may be coincidence, but in the past 40 years, relatively inclusive growth only happened under the watch of Labour leader Tony Blair and during a catastrophe for the entire economy.
Under a Conservative government, outside of an all encompassing economic crash, the only people that did well since the 1980's were the top 1% - and that's not me saying that, it's the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who are not known for their tree-hugging, hippy communist principles.
So beware Boris Johnson.
Beware the man with the artfully distressed hair-don't. Beware the man who checks the mirror before he leaves the house to make sure he isn't smart.
Beware the man who wants a return to Thatcherism because he and everyone he knows are likely to be the ones that benefit.
The rest of us will be left wondering how we work harder for less money, while those that are rolling in it will be donning their bow-ties, pulling on their dinner jackets and telling us it's the best time of our lives.
