Make UK's super-rich pay for social care Boris (not the poor) says MILLIONAIRE INVESTOR

According to the Times Rich List, in the last 12 months of acute economic emergency, Sir Leonard Blavatnik, Britain's richest man, saw his wealth actually INCREASE, by £7.2billion. David and Simon Reuben, property moguls and Britain's second richest family, have seen their wealth rise by £5.5billion. Lakshmi Mittal, Britain's fifth wealthiest individual, has seen his fortune swell by £7.9billion. That's a total wealth increase of £20.6billion, coming from only three families, during the pandemic. Take the top 250, and it's £106billion.

So, in this most difficult of times, when millions of mothers and fathers have lost their jobs and their incomes, when over 100,000 Britons have lost family members, when millions are struggling to cover their rent, to put food on the table for their children, where is Boris Johnson looking to find this £10billion, to take care of our elderly? Surely he will approach these billionaire individuals.

These three families who can pay for this social need care twice over with just the increase in their wealth during the pandemic, and still have enough left over to buy Jack Grealish and Harry Kane, three times.

Rishi Sunak's father-inlaw is himself a billionaire. Surely he will understand that now, more than ever before, the super-rich, who have profited hugely from this crisis, should reach into their pockets to help provide the hard-working people of this country with dignity in their old age.

Well, no actually. Boris and Rishi have another plan. There is another group of people that they want to tax.You.

You may not have made a £7.9billion profit during the coronavirus crisis. But Boris and Rishi feel that you are the one who should pay the extra taxes.

Their plan, according to leaks to a string of national newspapers, is not to raise taxes on the richest, but rather to raise taxes on workers, by increasing National Insurance contributions by one percent.

National Insurance applies only to workers. It is not applied to any income Sir Leonard Blavatnik makes on his £23billion fortune or to Lakshmi Mittal's exceptional coronavirus profits of £7.9billion.

It does not apply to any income that Rishi Sunak himself makes on his huge personal fortune of an estimated £200million No, Rishi does not want to pay for the social care crisis from his fortune, and he doesn't want his billionaire mates to pay either. It will be you. It will be the teachers.

It will be the doctors and nurses, whose measly one percent pay rise offer will be immediately erased by this rise in National Insurance. It will be the builders and the cab drivers and the shop workers and the small business owners. You will all pay an extra one percent from your salary, every year until you retire, while Rishi and the country's wealthiest people will not pay a penny extra on the huge incomes they get from their ever-growing piles of wealth.

Do you think that's fair? I don't. I'm a millionaire. I came from a poor background in Ilford, east London, but I worked my way up to a job in the City where I had the opportunity to make millions of pounds by betting on the future of the economy.

That means that for me, like for Sir Leonard Blavatnik and for Lakshmi Mittal, my income now does not come from working. That means that my income, like that of the £20billion profit of the top three billionaire families, will not be affected by this tax at all.

Do you think that's fair? Something is rotten when, during a pandemic, a national and global emergency, the richest people in the country fill their pockets. Something is doubly rotten when, after that crisis, when the country's elderly need protection, those billionaires and multi-millionaires send the bill over to you.

Do not accept this.

Demand decent social care - God knows our elderly and those with disabilities need and deserve it. And then demand that the richest are asked to pay for it.Whether that's through a wealth tax, closing tax loopholes, paying more back in the gains they make on their stocks and shares... there are dozens of ways they can pay.

It is not right that the ordinary, hard-working people who carried us through this crisis get lumped with the bill while the rich make a fortune. Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson: The hard-working people of this country are willing to contribute their fair share to make this country better, are you?

• Gary Stevenson is an Inequality economist and former trader