Inequality is causing misery

I agree with her that this country is seeing progress on gender equality and tolerance towards LGBT communities.

However, her statement that ‘people should genuinely feel we live in an equal, fair and tolerant country’ smacks of state propaganda – it could not be further from the truth.

Wealth inequality has been growing inexorably over the last thirty years in the UK and is among the worst in developed countries.

Top CEOs and bankers, after a busy day on the golf course, pat themselves on the back that, just like every day, they’ve earned well over a hundred times more than a nurse, a teacher or a bricklayer. It beggars belief.

Young people don’t stand a chance of getting their foot on the housing ladder. The use of food banks has trebled over the last three years alone. What exactly is fair or equal about this?

Wealth inequality damages social cohesion and causes misery for many.

Sadly, in the absence of any credible opposition, the Government can afford to be complacent on this matter.

The Tory approach has always been to say they’ll grow the national economy, so that somehow some of this wealth will trickle down to the bottom too.

With the self-inflicted economic downturn caused by Brexit this approach cannot be deemed viable any more, if ever it was.

As one of the wealthiest nations on Earth, what we’re actually seeing is a funnelling of wealth towards the top, with cuts to public services and funding, impacting the most disadvantaged hardest.

Finally, while we do not have the brash type of xenophobia seen in the USA, the recent referendum debates have shown that there is a strong and altogether more insidious undercurrent of intolerance in this country.

I dread to think where the Gender Recognition Act would be if we had a referendum on it.

Dominic Manning

Love Lane

Rye

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