Gary Stevenson is the working-class former City trader who became a millionaire at 25 then quit to campaign against economic inequality. He spreads the gospel with revolutionary zeal via YouTube, where he has 1.62 million subscribers and the slogan: “Other economists make predictions, but my ones are actually right.” Hmm. Did he predict that this documentary, How to Get Filthy Rich With Gary Stevenson (Channel 4), would make him look so embarrassingly out of his depth?
You can’t argue with Stevenson’s statements that living standards are falling and people are struggling to get by, nor can you doubt the sincerity of his beliefs. Undeniably, wealth is concentrated in the hands of the super-rich, and home ownership is becoming a pipe dream in many parts of the country.
Stevenson introduced us to his dad, who was able to buy a house and start a family on his postal worker’s wage; and then to Nathaniel, living in a van in Bristol because he can’t afford rent (the average private rent there is nearly £2,000 a month) despite being in full-time work, first as an emergency care assistant with the Ambulance Service and currently as an Amazon delivery driver.
Stevenson’s skill is in explaining the economics of inequality. Things get trickier when he has to present his big idea for solving it.
I’m no economics expert, but I can recognise an outsized ego when I see one, and Stevenson has all the traits of the self-aggrandising online influencer class. He maintains his carefully curated image (tatty bobble hat, sermons from his kitchen table) and is so used to addressing his followers straight down the camera that engaging in debate with people of differing views leaves him floundering.
Woolly hat firmly on, he went to see Francis Fulford, a landowner and reality TV regular. The gulf between the pair began with a funny class signifier (“Why do you want to take your shoes off?” Fulford asked, baffled, when Stevenson offered to do that, as they entered a room so lived-in that a black Labrador was lying on the table), and went downhill from there. Under Stevenson’s wealth tax, Fulford would pay £600,000 per year on his £40m estate (3,000 acres, mostly let out to tenant farmers, plus 24 houses on the land). Fulford had to point out that he is asset rich but cash poor, and accused Stevenson of peddling “Noddyland economics”.
Reform donor and self-made businessman Bassim Haider, interviewed in his sleek £42m apartment at One Hyde Park (definitely a shoes-off situation), was smoother but equally dismissive of Stevenson’s plans. These two, however, were just the warm-up for Stevenson’s pasting by tax expert Dan Neidle.
“Absolute populist claptrap and the people pushing it should be ashamed of themselves,” Neidle said of the wealth tax proposal, and pointed out that foreign companies and wealthy individuals would simply pull their capital out of the UK. “If you were a proper economist you would have thought about foreign investment.”
Stevenson became increasingly testy and, instead of countering with an intelligent argument, was reduced to saying: “Poverty has got worse – do you care about that?” Sure, said Neidle, “but the fact I worry about it doesn’t mean I can seize on any initiative with a nice name and refuse to think about the consequences”. Ouch.
How to Get Filthy Rich With Gary Stevenson is on channel4.com