People earning over £100,000 a year (which you must be if 75% of your income is in the upper tax bracket) yet whining about an extremely minor redistribution of wealth to redress an unfair and disproportionate burden on the poor, are one of the most unedifying sights known to humanity.

40% tax on the bit of your income that's above the national average? So that's only leaving you, what, £45,000 a year more to spend after tax than the average person? (And nobody really thinks that the "average" person gets £26K anyway.) Aw, you poor fucking diddums. Is the nasty tax man going to make it too expensive to put petrol in the second Porsche? Come on, everybody! Whip-round for [poster]!

The really hilarious thing about the whining of the wealthy, of course, is that it's all about maintaining differentials. [Poster], [poster] and the rest don't really care how much they pay in tax, they just want to maintain their status as being rich compared to everyone else, which they've "worked so hard" for. (And never mind how insulting that is to anyone who works just as hard, but at a job which happens to command a lower salary - a category which includes just about every USEFUL job on the planet.) And why is that hilarious? Because maintaining differentials was the root of most of the union-based strikes which beset Britain in the 1970s, which were the reason Thatcher apologists most often give for the "necessity" of the brutal Tory governments of the 80s/90s.

All these bleating richos are, in a towering piece of irony, displaying the exact behaviour they demanded had to be smashed when it was being used for the benefit of groups of people rather than greedy individuals. And that's pretty damn funny. In the bitter, black sense of the word, of course.

As for the argument that "I need all my money to look after my family and give my kids the best start I possibly can in life" - the thing is, you also have human responsibilities beyond that. When this country was at war, there was rationing and hardship and mutual sacrifice, but by and large people put up with it for the common good - ie "It's better for everyone to be a little bit hungry than for half the people to be well fed and the other half starve to death". That's the thing that's different today, and it's the thing that Thatcher is almost totally personally responsible for - the idea that looking after No.1 is everything, and if it means you have to trample over people even worse-off than you to get more for yourself then that's fine.

Deflecting the "blame" onto your kids is a red herring. "Giving my kids the best start in life" is just another way of saying you want them to have an advantage over everyone else, and that's the exact same selfish impulse as people taking more than their share of food in the war in the full knowledge that it meant others going without.

If you deny/don't believe in the principle of "the common good", then fine - but don't ask for government tax credits, don't ask for benefits if you get sick or unemployed, and don't call the police or fire brigade if you get mugged or your house burns down, because everyone paid for those things whether they personally used them or not, in the name of the common good. If you don't want to contribute to the common good, don't take from it either. That's not Communism, it's basic human decency, and if you disagree with it and say "I'm looking after my family and fuck everyone else", then you have to accept the brutal law of the jungle that that implies.

And as for [poster]'s claim "I worked fucking hard to get where I am today" - yeah, yeah, the bleat of the greedy everywhere. Bully for you that you chose/happened to have the skills for, a job where hard work brings large financial rewards. Not everyone has that luxury, because SOMEONE has to clean the sewers, SOMEONE has to collect the rubbish, SOMEONE has to come and save your sorry arse when your six-grand plasma TV overheats and sets your house on fire, but there isn't any way of getting rich at those jobs, no matter how "fucking hard" you work. Bully for you that you're in one of the rich jobs. I'm sure we're all thrilled for you and lost in envious admiration.

What's always sickening about the well-off, however, is the cry "Anyone could be rich like me if they just got off their arse, got on their bike and worked fucking hard for it". Because you'd be whining about it quick enough if all the firemen and dustmen and sewermen and nurses actually did quit tomorrow to go and get worthless but lucrative jobs moving money around in the City or somesuch. But the minute one of those people ask for an "inflation-busting" pay increase, because they can't actually afford to put a roof over THEIR family's heads any more on what they get paid, an increase which would have to be paid for from the public purse, and hence through taxation - well, the whining from the middle-class is like every air-raid siren in the country going off at once for the four-minute warning.

AROOGA! AROOGA!

UPPITY WAGE-SLAVE APOCALYPSE!

AROOGA!

It's the overpaid who pay ludicrously inflated prices for houses - because hey, they can afford it, so what does it matter? - and who accordingly see property priced out of the reach of the people who provide essential services. And because those people - with shattered unions and no viable left-wing political parties left to vote for - have no way of keeping their salaries in touch with the rocketing housing market, the gap between the rich and poor grows wider every year, both in this country and the world as a whole.

For that to be the case in a "civilised" world is a sick fucking joke, but it's people like you who ensure that it happens. I don't mind you or anyone else doing well for yourself and your family. It's the deliberate and knowing pulling up of the ladder behind you, the deliberate screwing over of those whose conscience won't allow them to be so selfish, that really rankles.