One in three of the UK’s listed billionaires has donated to the Conservative Party since 2005, a
Labour study has found.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell accused the prime minister of allowing the “super-rich” to buy access to “tax breaks and corporate giveaways”.
The research showed that 48 of the 151 billionaires listed in the latest Sunday Times Rich List have handed £50m to the Tories since 2005.
McDonnell has calculated that by 2023/24, the Conservatives will have handed out “tax breaks and corporate giveaways” worth almost £100bn since coming to power in 2010.
Labour said they included £86bn in corporation tax cuts, £5.6bn in reductions to inheritance tax and £5.5bn in cuts to capital gains tax.
But the Conservatives said the “top 1%” were paying a greater share of taxes than at any time under the last Labour government while tax receipts from business were at an all-time high.
In a speech on Tuesday, McDonnell will accuse the Tories of siding with “the billionaires, the bankers and big business”.
Speaking in
London, he will say: “No one needs or deserves to have that much money, it is obscene.
“It is also obscene that these billionaires are buying access and tax breaks to Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party.“We know whose side
Boris Johnson is on – the billionaires, the bankers and big business.
“Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party are on the side of the people, offering real change for our country, putting wealth and power in the hands of the many, not the few.”
Conservative Treasury Minister Simon Clarke said: “Corbyn’s Labour have revealed their true colours. They want to stop people from passing on their family homes to their children after they die.
“Rather than helping people to succeed, they want to take away your family home in higher taxes. Their plans would not hit billionaires – they would overwhelmingly hurt hard-pressed families.”
It comes as all parties vie to win over voters ahead of the December 12 general election.
A recent poll by YouGov poll found 51% think that nobody, in any circumstances, deserves to have a billion pounds in personal wealth while just 35% said they do (14% didn’t know).Four in 10 also said that the growing number of billionaires and “super-rich” is a sign society is getting worse.Related... Exclusive: Labour Manifesto To Pledge Review Of Britain's Colonial Past Explained: What NHS Privatisation And 'On The Table In Trade Talks' Actually Mean Johnson Vows To Cut Taxes For Businesses Amid
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