Boris Johnson is about the only politician in Britain to stand up for the rich, pointing out that while they may be annoying, they tend to create jobs and prosperity and having plenty of that is no bad thing. The Mayor was interviewed for the latest Freakonomics podcast, boasting that:
“London is attracting huge amounts of international investment… London is to billionaires what the jungles of Sumatra are to the orangutan. It is their natural habitat.”
Here it is the podcast – Boris is at the start:-
“I’m sure you like your poor people too,” replied the presenter – which is an odd question. Does welcoming wealth imply being sniffy about the poor? As Boris knows, billionaires are super taxpayers, waking cash cows for the government and massive benefactors of public services as well as charities.
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