BBC Radio 4 audience member's outburst sums up stupidity of Labour policy

Foolishly, I still haven't entirely switched off the Radio 4 habit. Some part of me must be hankering back to my youth, when Radio 4 maintained an independent news agenda, intelligent reporting and produced quiz shows that were actually funny. Sadly, all that is very long gone and these days I usually favour the competition. But still the odd blast of Radio 4 gets through and makes me want to hurl the radio at the wall.

It happened again at the weekend when I idiotically tuned into Any Questions? and the subject turned to the number of wealthy people currently leaving the UK on the back of Labour's spiteful, class envy-driven taxation agenda.

"Good riddance," bellowed one particularly stupid audience member and while admittedly it was a member of the public rather than a Beeb staffer (I hope), this is exactly the kind of attitude you find in every corner of the corporation.

If you have tried to do well in life, managed to buy a house, plan financially for the future, then you're the dreaded "rich" and deserve to be punished. You probably have the Cross of St George waving in your back garden or tattooed upon your person. If you weren't so rich you'd be driving a white van.

I quite genuinely do not understand how people can be quite so thick. You know all those benefits Labour are so keen on? Who do you think is paying for them? The top 10% of taxpayers paid 60% of all income tax in 2023-24 (up from 35% in 1978-79) and the top one % paid nearly 30% of the tax.

Or to put it in a way that even the morons in the audience of Any Questions? might understand, we need rich people. They pay most of the tax already and if we drive them away, who is going to fund "our" NHS? The state schools that are already under huge pressure from the influx of new pupils now that our stupid, incompetent, innumerate Chancellor has decided to tax private schools?

Who will go to restaurants, shops, cinemas and the rest of it without money cascading down from the wealthy? If you drive away the wealth creators and we're left with a nation of civil servants and benefits claimants, we are going to go bankrupt. Is that really so hard for the Labour Party and Radio 4 to understand?