It may sound cliché but it is oh so true because in fact the rich are getting richer while the poor are certainly on the losing end of the stick. According to recent figures, FTSE executives’ earnings increased by at least 33% last year whilst the rest of us took a cut in pay, or worse yet, became redundant.
David Cameron is calling these trying times an opportunity, but for the average wage earner, this is not the type of opportunity he or she would like to see. Most workers in the UK, in fact 70% or more have seen their wages diminish and the only opportunity they are seeing is the opportunity to lose everything they have worked for so hard and so long.
The line of demarcation between the rich and poor has never been drawn more clearly as is evidenced by the fashionable land of plenty in the Ivy Club district. Nightclubs there are showing an increase in profits by 8.8% and luxury hotels are absolutely booming. Of note is the fact that the Savoy just went under a £220 million refurbishing and the British Hospitality Association estimates that the industry will have spent or will be spending £1.5 billion in updating or building luxury hotels in London.
In a brilliant exposé written up in the Guardian, the excesses of the rich and famous ‘philanthropists’ have been called to attention because they belie the reality of what is being referred to as ‘two nations.’ There is the nation of the David Camerons of the world with wives designing bags selling for over £1,000 and there is the world of the average worker who is struggling to survive long enough to earn a bag of groceries selling for under £50. Is there a recession? Not for the Prime Minister, it doesn’t seem.
