Anyone watching BBC 2 on 6 March would have suddenly found their homes invaded by a swarm of parasites. No, not wild locusts. Man Alive was doing a profile of the British capitalist class.
A government report had just shown that despite the recession the top one per cent are getting richer and richer: money which might have been re-invested is now being spent on luxuries. One woman displayed her £15,000 coat from Harrods. An exclusive cigar seller said that most of his clients spend at least £15.000 a year on cigars alone. At the Boat Show this year, £250,000 boats were being sold quite easily.
One of the most outspoken of the parasitic breed is Rupert Deen and it is worth quoting him:
Daddy never worked; nor have I, . . . I have various businesses . . . January I’m still shooting, because it’s too cold to go ski-ing . . .
Does he meet people with much less money than himself? “Not if I can help it.”
He pays £7,000 a year to keep each of his horses; more than the wages of many workers. While most of us are worried by the problem of unemployment, his unearned income allows him to live in luxury:
Speaking personally, the recession doesn't affect me at all because I'm not employed. The state of the world market at the moment, Wall Street’s just gone through a thousand points which is an all time high, the London stock market’s almost as high, the pound's very strong, so when I spend four months of the year abroad, in fact I'm better off if anything.
A night-club owner summed up the class division quite clearly when he said that “the people who have got it have always got it”.
An accountant called Hardman was asked the best way to build a fortune. He answered: “Well clearly, you can't do it if you’re on PAYE. You’ve got to have your own company and employ other people.”
This is the real class division. The recession brings it out more clearly than ever. There is a small minority who own substantial capital, which is applied to live off the backs of the others. This is all part of a system in which the majority are employed by the parasite for wages. Are the ruling class so arrogant that they can expose it widely on television, confident that the viewers won’t want to put a stop to it?
Clifford Slapper
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