On last night’s edition of Newsnight, Norman Lamont declared that while inequality “increased under Mrs Thatcher” it increased “much, much more” under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. It’s a common claim but as the IFS graph below shows, it isn’t true. It was during the Thatcher years that inequality surged before stabilising under Major and rising slightly under Labour. Under a Conservative government, less committed to redistribution, the increase would almost certainly have been far worse (not least due to the global forces pulling the rich and poor apart).
Inequality in the UK 1979 to 2007-08
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