Despite the best efforts of some of its members to discredit it with market rigging, tax avoidance, and unjustified bonuses, the business community is still held in awe in Britain. Any suggestion of higher taxes for top earners or tougher regulations on the abuse of market power is howled down as dangerously anti-business. Politicians who are serious about the nation’s prosperity and its citizens’ welfare, it is accepted, need to be “pro-business”.
But what does it mean to be pro-business? First, we should not confuse a pro-business stance with a pro-rich stance. Not all rich people are business people, or “wealth creators”, as they are often called these days. Some of them have simply inherited vast sums of money, while others have created wealth elsewhere and are simply enjoying their lives in the UK.
Related: Tax avoiders and hedge funds. The Tories invited them to the party …
We have allowed the idle rich to parade as wealth-creating, rule-breaking business people for far too long
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