Great to see the @greenparty.org.uk under @zackpolanski.bsky.social have included tackling excessive income equality in their plan to take on the affordability crisis. 10:1 pay ratios is very ambitious, but far better to aim high than accept a broken status quo which few people support.

March listening

Fab video from the @highpaycentre.bsky.social on the *shocking* size of bankers bonuses 💰 Years of higher interest rates have let banks rake in record profits while our rent, mortgage, and debt payments soar. Add your name to #TaxTheBanks 👉 bit.ly/TaxTheBanks

We spoke to Londoners how they felt about CEOs of the big banks getting bumper pay rises, and earning more in a year than most people would earn in several lifetimes. See how they responded below.

Increasing collective prosperity and tackling economic inequality is not a binary and should not be seen as one. Many people have growing awareness that greater economic growth does not necessarily mean better living standards for themselves.

Few examples better illustrate the UK’s broken corporate model than thousands of homes across Kent being left without water. Our researcher, Paddy Goffey, writes in @LeftFootFwd outlining the need for CEO to worker pay gap caps in such failing industries: leftfootforward.org/2026/01/why-...

The govt came to power claiming to be pro worker and pro business, but pro-business shouldn’t mean caving to the most regressive demands of the business lobby. Nor should good regulation be used as an excuse for poor growth. Our statement on the govt scrapping the corporate governance and audit bill

By this time yesterday FTSE 100 CEOs had already made more this year than an avg UK worker earns all year. Our Interim Director @andrewspeke.bsky.social explains how we can start to tackle extreme pay inequality. Sign our Fat Cat Tax petition here: you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/fat-…

We are sad to be saying goodbye to our Executive Director of seven years, @lukehildyard.bsky.social, and are pleased to announce that our Head of Communications, @andrewspeke.bsky.social, will be stepping in as Interim Director. We wish Luke all the best in his new role at @shareaction.bsky.social!

The full report showing who the highest earners are and our proposed solutions to extreme pay inequality is now published here. highpaycentre.org/ceo-pay-in-t...

🚨NEW: The pay of FTSE 100 CEOs has reached a new record high of £4.58 million. The third record setting year in a row. FTSE 100 CEO pay is 122 times greater than the typical UK worker. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

In Westminster, a Blue Labour staff network has been set up. I spoke to the earnest (mostly) young (mostly) men of the tendency about their politics, plans and why they really just want to have a big chat: www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

NEW: Our latest research shows that pay gaps at the largest UK companies between CEOs and their employees are as wide now as they were 5 years ago, with a FTSE 100 CEO paid 78 times more than their median employee. Has the time come for a maximum wage? www.theguardian.com/business/202...

We cannot compete with the vast sums JK Rowling has to spend on her war on a tiny minority and civil society organisations that want to promote inclusivity. But @goodlawproject.bsky.social is the UK's biggest defender of trans rights. If you'd like to support our work there's a link in my bio.

In an era when the global political situation and climate crisis make sustained economic growth increasingly hard to achieve, we can't increase living standards for most people without tackling extreme inequality. New research from @equalitytrust.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ma...

Kind of amazing how nakedly dishonest are Wes Streeting's lot when it comes to suppressing data on young people taking their own lives in consequence of the withdrawal of gender affirming care. 🤯🧵

The High Pay Centre response to the 2025 Sunday Times Rich List

The rich list is a useful annual reminder of the inefficiency of the UK economy. Despite a dip in oligarch wealth this year, in the long term it has shown a trend of a handful of very rich people capturing an increasing share of the country’s wealth. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Recently left Labour and joined the Greens to #backzack in the Greens leadership election this summer. Politics has swung to the right in the UK and we need the Greens to provide a strong left alternative which prioritises tackling the root cause of our problems - inequality.

Average global CEO pay has skyrocketed 50% since 2019 to $4.3M. By contrast, average worker pay has risen just 0.9% over that same time period.  Why do we always hear "we can't afford to pay our workers more" but never "we can't afford to pay our CEO more"?

Today's results and the feedback from voters shows that this government is going to need to do more to improve the material conditions of those on low and middle incomes if they want to stay in power after the next election. Tackling economic inequality is crucial to that. (1/4)

On 19 May we are hosting this webinar with the authors of new book 'Collective Employment Relations: A Strategic Guide" to discuss how positive relationships between management and trade unions can benefit both business and workers. highpaycentre.org/fromconflict...

Adrianne Lenker’s new live album deserves some hype. The most immediately satisfying album I’ve heard so far this year. Love everything about it.

There’s a really depressing irony of billionaires banging on about how privileged trans people are when we all send the same £20 to each other’s surgery fundraisers, yet they’re stumping up £70,000 to pay for the erosion of our rights

🙃

Literally every single toilet is cleaned by attendants of every gender. They're not sex protected spaces, at all. The Minister is just a transphobe.

Beyond contempt. What’s worse is that the political choices and statements the government are making go way beyond the limited judgment the Supreme Court made over the use of the term woman in the Equality Act. Just morally bankrupt pandering to a media radicalised by anti-trans hysteria

I wonder whether this is also why UK courts are so reluctant to hear from trans people. They harbour a belief, unacknowledged even to themselves, that to be trans is to lack the ability to make decisions about your own life. It's akin to how White nations once thought about Black and Brown people.

NEW: Thousands of people with cancer, cardiovascular diseases and respiratory diseases, and more than 200,000 people with arthritis are among the 1.3 million whose disability benefits are at risk from planned cuts, according to FOI data By me, for @bigissue.com www.bigissue.com/news/social-...

The gender angle aside, just another example of a billionaire using their wealth to change the world in their image. Genuinely absurd how JK Rowling is more often discussed as a victim rather than a malign actor with regards trans issues.

Interested in learning about how we could run our economy as if people and planet actually mattered? Come join us in London in June for some outstanding courses on ecological economics and money with @modernmoneylab.org.uk - all details at modernmoneylab.org.uk

Higher levels of poverty and cuts to public services are not inevitable. A wealth tax should be a no-brainer.

A reminder that this rally to tax the super-rich will be taking place 5pm today outside the Treasury. There is no need to cut vital services if excessive earnings and wealth are taxed fairly.

Inequality is soaring, public services are crumbling & the climate is collapsing. We need investment to fix these crises. 📢 Join the spring budget rally & tell the Chancellor: tax the super-rich, don't cut public services! 📅 Tues 25, 5pm, Westminster

It's really not that hard. We understand that Labour had a difficult inheritance. It's more that, since taking office, Labour has (it sometimes feels deliberately) stuck its middle finger up at almost everything Labour voters care about. 🧵 www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

I think of this as 'everything is comms' disease. This interview looked awful because the policy is, in fact, awful. You can't do an interview about it and come across well unless your interlocutor is under-prepared!

The only remotely appealing comms I’ve seen from any major UK political party recently

A pay rise for the CEO of a major private utilities firm the same day as the price cap on energy bills goes up shows the current model is failing the UK public. A new model is needed to ensure energy provision prioritises consumers and the environment www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

I'm in LabourList, writing about Project Chainsaw, Scottish DOGE, and Labour talking about making Britain great again, all of which does nothing but signal desperation and a clanging lack of ideological self confidence. labourlist.org/2025/03/labo...

The limitations of Bluesky

Powerful editorial in @theguardian.com today "Labour’s transformation can be seen as a quiet coup by the professional-managerial class who prize economic orthodoxy over radical redistribution" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

"Our two countries are Asian civilizations. We share common values and cooperation is in our interests". cool. (also for info for those who try to palestine-washing the Chinese state) www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/ar...

Instead of cutting benefits for the sick and the disabled, it is more urgent than ever for the government to introduce a wealth tax. This could bring in £460bn a week, helping to tackle inequality, support the vulnerable and improve living standards for all.

it's been very much underplayed of late how Reeves and McSweeney (and Starmer himself, to the extent that Starmer actually believes in anything) just outright *want* to cut disability benefit.

One under appreciated point in the discussion on welfare is that we live in a very different economy to that of 50 years ago. Our economy is dominated by service/knowledge industries - sectors it’s particularly hard to work in if you’re neurodiverse or have a chronic mental health condition. 🧵

It's genuinely hard to keep track of how many other countries have recently reviewed trans healthcare for kids and come up with literally the polar opposite of the "Cass Review" Australia, Canada, France, Poland and now Germany, Austria and Switzerland www.erininthemorning.com/p/new-german...

Please make it stop. I know there’s not much of substance to discuss with the Chancellor at the moment, but really?

It is so 2025 that a film with a trans storyline that the trans community fucking despises wins some of the most prestigious film awards in the world and the cisgender winners don’t even mention what’s happening to the trans community in the very country they’re accepting the awards in

Reminder: we are being trained not to care about other people. It underlines the attacks on migrants, on DEI, on trans youth, on so-called "wokeness." Sure there are legitimate critiques but this is not about critiques. It's about supercharging capitalism's culture of uncare.