OT: What a fair and equitable country we live in ... NOT

[sidders]

Half of England is owned by less than 1% of its population, according to new data shared with the Guardian which seeks to penetrate the secrecy that has traditionally surrounded land ownership.

The findings, described as “astonishingly unequal”, suggest that about 25,000 landowners – typically members of the aristocracy and corporations – have control of half of the country.

The figures show that if the land were distributed evenly across the entire population, each person would have almost an acre – an area roughly the size of Parliament Square in central London.

Major owners include the Duke of Buccleuch, the Queen, several large grouse moor estates, and the entrepreneur James Dyson.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/20...downers-author

[Braddpie]

And the church of england

[JoePass]

Half of England is owned by less than 1% of its population, according to new data shared with the Guardian which seeks to penetrate the secrecy that has traditionally surrounded land ownership.

The findings, described as “astonishingly unequal”, suggest that about 25,000 landowners – typically members of the aristocracy and corporations – have control of half of the country.

The figures show that if the land were distributed evenly across the entire population, each person would have almost an acre – an area roughly the size of Parliament Square in central London.

Major owners include the Duke of Buccleuch, the Queen, several large grouse moor estates, and the entrepreneur James Dyson.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/20...downers-author

Thanks for that Mr Corbyn...

[queenslandpie]

Half of England is owned by less than 1% of its population, according to new data shared with the Guardian which seeks to penetrate the secrecy that has traditionally surrounded land ownership.

The findings, described as “astonishingly unequal”, suggest that about 25,000 landowners – typically members of the aristocracy and corporations – have control of half of the country.

The figures show that if the land were distributed evenly across the entire population, each person would have almost an acre – an area roughly the size of Parliament Square in central London.

Major owners include the Duke of Buccleuch, the Queen, several large grouse moor estates, and the entrepreneur James Dyson.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/20...downers-author

Sid whats new. Cast your mind back to the Middle Ages when all of England was owned by 0.000001% of the population. We've come a long way since then. Anyway there will always be way more have nots than haves its the same in the animal kingdom and even in the oceans you know. The land in question is mainly arable anyway. I dont think they will be moving MK Dons onto it anytime soon.

[sidders]

And, another statistic applicable to the UK is that 7% of the people own 84% of its wealth. I'm afraid the taxman needs to wield a sharper axe.
O and Suckerman, this has nowt to do with Corbyn - I have no time for him,

[Trickytreesreds]

And, another statistic applicable to the UK is that 7% of the people own 84% of its wealth. I'm afraid the taxman needs to wield a sharper axe.
O and Suckerman, this has nowt to do with Corbyn - I have no time for him,

OK, how is it going to change Sid?
A Russian/ Chinese/Vietnamese revolution?
How'd that work out for the common man?

[jackal2]

That's always been my issue with the various theories that basically advocate common ownership and the even share of resources. I've got nothing against the idea in principle, but human nature is such that (I believe) it will never be achievable in practice. As with the rest of nature, evolution is predicated on survival of the fittest, and although humans may have a greater ability than other creatures to empathise with and help the less fortunate, the instinct to protect one's own interests, family and offspring still runs deep, especially when the chips are down. The world is not a fair and equal place and it never will be. In fact, some of the worst abuses of power, resources and human rights are often perpetrated by regimes that claim to be trying to achieve an equitable utopia, while in reality their leaders and hierarchy are even more greedy, selfish and disconnected from ordinary people than the political elite of this country are.

[sidders]

The few who have taken up this fred are focusing on the wrong area. It is those who are suffering the most as a consequence of this unfair distribution. Do you doubt that there are MILLIONS living on the breadline in the UK? Do you not believe that many of these are children; many of whom rely on school for their main sustenance? Shouldn't this have been limited to the time of Charles Dickens?

And no, I'm not advocating revolution or rebellion. We live in a relatively structured and lawful society (thank God) but we desperately need to use that structure to bring about change - largely through taxation.
As Mark Carney has indicated, we need to bring about such change anyway to meet the challenge of climate change. It's not the poor who are creating global warming. It's the rich who must take the lead.

[salmagundi]

Statistics are interesting aren't they. You can pick and choose which you want to promote a particular point of view.
From the Guardian
In total we paid £174bn income tax in 2016-17, the latest year for which figures are available. But of that, £52.5bn – nearly a third of all tax raised – was paid by 381,000 taxpayers. The tax paid by those 381,000 individuals (overwhelmingly male) was more than all the income tax paid by the first 20 million taxpayers.
Perhaps some of these taxpayers might think the current system is unfair to them.

[BigFatPie]

People vote for greater inequality every time they vote Tory. Many vote Tory because they’re told to by the billionaire owners of the tabloid newspapers. It’s not Marxist or revolutionary to think that high income earners should have a bit less and people who have to go to food banks and schools who can’t afford to stay open for 5 days should have a bit more.