Check out the following headlines as captured by Google today:

Now if Corbyn had said “I am wealthy” he would also have been mocked by the press:

“Deluded Corbyn think’s he is ‘wealthy’ with net worth of 650K when Richard Branson’s is 3.8 billion!”

“Corbyn thinks he is in the same class as Richard Branson whose net worth is 6000 times greater!”

It doesn’t matter what Corbyn says. The headlines are filled with scorn and derision.

Though they are relative and debatable terms, economists have established precise definitions for “poverty” and “extreme poverty”.

I’ve not seen UN data classifying people as “wealthy” or “extremely wealthy”. It is safer to speak vaguely of “inequality” than to set a certain level for wealth and say “How can anyone be deluded enough to think this level of wealth is justified?”.

Those who are most hostile to equitable wealth redistribution will try to set the level for “poverty” and “wealth” as low as possible. That way you invisibilize the Branson’s of the world, and, in the most typical case, encourage struggling people to turn on unionized workers, especially in the public sector, when their salaries are much higher than the median.

In Corbyn’s case, the media has turned on a politician who seriously unnerves people like Richard Branson.

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