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Watch: Gary Stevenson’s wealth-tax dream gets a reality check

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The left’s favourite ‘economist’, Gary Stevenson, is having a shocker. His new Channel 4 documentary, How to Get Filthy Rich With Gary Stevenson, is apparently so dire that even The Guardian has branded it an ‘embarrassment’.

The former City trader has fashioned a new career for himself as a whingeing lefty, forever harping on about the need to impose a two per cent wealth tax on everything anyone owns above £10 million. To be fair, the documentary sounds rather hilarious. Mr S hasn’t yet watched it, but the reviews – and clips circulating on social media – suggest it is essentially a 90-minute compilation of Ilford-born Gaz being told, time and again, why his big idea is moronic, only for the so-called economist to fail to mount a single convincing comeback.

In one particularly joyous clip, Stevenson is schooled by Labour-affiliated tax expert Dan Neidle on why his wealth-tax wet dream is ‘populist claptrap’ and a non-starter. After explaining that the policy would kill off desperately needed foreign investment in Britain, Neidle informs him: ‘You are unable to separate your emotional reaction to inequality with a rational assessment of the best tools for it.’

Should you be in need of a laugh on this hot summer’s eve, the documentary is available on Channel 4 streaming now. But Mr S can quite understand why Spectator readers may have far better things to do. For a programme about getting filthy rich, it seems to have left its star looking rather poor.

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Steerpike

Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

This article originally appeared in the UK edition

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