As you’d expect, the British media and the five guys who own it are very unhappy about the prospect of a wealth tax. This is why the Spectator published an opinion piece titled Polanski is talking nonsense about wealth taxes on 14 October. Zack Polanski isn’t playing the game, though, and he’s used the article as an opportunity to hammer home that our media is bought and paid for:
The Spectator (owned by GBNews owner Paul Marshall – estimated wealth of £800 million) doesn’t like taxing wealth fairly.
I wonder how they got to this editorial decision?
Let’s tax wealth fairly, fund front line services & make hope normal again.https://t.co/Q27Jy5eX7z pic.twitter.com/y3ksiqTIQb
— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) October 14, 2025
Rich crybabies cry harder
Writing for the Spectator, Matthew Bowles wrote:
Polanski assured the audience that a wealth tax would only fall on those with more than £10 million in assets – as if this made it both morally tidy and economically painless.
‘As if this made it morally tidy’ – sorry, are they doing woke politics but for the rich? Isn’t the Spectator the outlet which published this:
Being rich isn’t a protected characteristic, and these people will still be up to their eyeballs in wealth even if they are taxed a bit more.
In his incredibly whiny article, Bowles argues that wealth taxes won’t work because the rich can just move. While this is true of a poorly implemented wealth tax, what you need to bear in mind is that while wealthy individuals can flee the country, they can’t take their British-based assets with them, and we can tax those whether they stay or not.
Tldr
it’s not about taxing WORKERS. It’s about taxing ASSET HOARDERS.
And we don’t need THEM, we need their ASSETS.
So it doesn’t matter if they leave – as long as we get the assets!!!
xxx— Gary Stevenson (@garyseconomics) July 7, 2024
Tipping point – and Zack Polanski knows it
Speaking on the ‘tipping point’ we seem to be experiencing, Tax Justice UK wrote:
At the weekend, ex-Labour leader Lord Neil Kinnock, backed such a wealth tax, and called on the current Labour PM to implement it. According to YouGov 75% of people agree with him, and support wealth taxes— with support consistent across the political spectrum, including majorities of Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and Reform voters.
But the tiny minority of vested interests who don’t want taxes on the super-rich, have outsized wealth, power and influence.
That’s why billionaire-backed newspapers are churning out reams of panicked op-eds, pedalling scare-mongering fictions: from the persistent myth of the “millionaire exodus”, to misrepresentations about who they would impact, and overblown claims about implementation impracticalities.
In a report on the “myth” of the millionaire exodus, the Tax Justice Network found (emphasis added):
A millionaire exodus widely reported by news outlets around the world in 2024, and credited for the UK Labour government’s decision to weaken tax reforms, did not occur, the Tax Justice Network reveals.
The media reporting – consisting of over 10,900 news pieces across print, broadcast and online news in 2024 – was primarily based on a report published by Henley & Partners, a firm that sells golden passports to the superrich and advises governments on setting up such schemes. The European Court of Justice recently ruled one such scheme, that of Malta, to be unlawful.
The Tax Justice Network’s review – co-published with Patriotic Millionaires UK and Tax Justice UK – of the Henley report finds that the number of millionaires claimed by Henley & Partners to be leaving countries in “exodus” in 2024 represented near-0% of those countries’ millionaire populations. For example, the 9500 millionaires widely reported to be leaving the UK in 2024 represented 0.3% of the UK’s 3.06 million millionaires.
Media reporting widely blamed the alleged millionaire exodus on tax policies in the same year that calls for a wealth tax on the superrich gained unprecedented momentum globally. The media reporting was equivalent to 30 news pieces a day on the non-existent millionaire exodus across 2024.
Looks like Polanski was right to call the media out on this one.
No silver bullet
As Polanski himself has said:
No. A wealth tax won’t solve everything. No one ever said it will.
But until we begin to challenge the power & wealth of the 1% – then we know this Labour government has been bought and paid for.
— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) September 30, 2025
In addition to wealth taxes, we need to re-nationalise our utilities, transport, and key industries to get away from this daft situation in which we’re paying through the nose for things which get worse every year.
The only thing which should get worse no matter how much money you throw at it is the Spectator, and rest assured, it will carry on getting worse as the Greens do better. Quite how they top today’s ‘most popular’ stories we don’t know, but we’re sure they’ll manage it:
Featured image via Zack Polanski
