You always come away from a David Howarth speech with your brain fizzing with excitement. Our former MP for Cambridge did not disappoint tonight as he delivered the Social Liberal Forum’s Beveridge Lecture in a hybrid event hosted online and at the National Liberal Club. Our newest MP, Sarah Green, a former Director of the SLF, was in the Chair.
The theme for tonight’s talk was Liberal Equality – what should the liberal attitude be to equality.
He started out by pointing out that unequal societies are unhealthier and unhappier – even if you have above average income. The financial crash and the pandemic have hastened an already growing inequality.
He talked about the threat posed by the super rich to our democracy and liberal values.
He looked at how John Stuart Mill’s idea that “the best state of human nature” involves nobody being poor, nobody having the desire to be richer and nobody fearing that they could be thrust back into poverty.
He had some ideas about how we could break up concentrations of wealth and power – capping political donations, state funding political parties by giving citizens vouchers to spend on the party of their choice, capping the amount you could inherit. Before anyone in a blue wall seat has to lie down and grab the smelling salts, the amounts would be beyond the incomes of all but the ultra rich – the sort of amount it would take to buy a national newspaper.
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