Gary O'Neil lined up for football return as Championship side prepare to sack boss after disappointing end to season
GARY O'NEIL tops Sheffield United's wanted list as they look into a change of boss.
O'Neil has not worked since leaving Wolves in December but has big admirers at Bramall Lane where Chris Wilder's position is being put under threat.
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Wilder, 57, is going to have to handle the new American owners giving him players based on AI data — as we revealed.
The experienced gaffer wants a handful of his own targets — but if they do not happen, there will be trouble ahead.
Wilder wants experienced players like free agent Jimmy Dunne and old boy Oli McBurnie, while Chris Mepham is another possible arrival.
But the new advisers are working on a deal for a mystery Bulgarian right-back, which could spark a major row.
Wilder signed a new deal in January and the compensation would be huge, a problem that may stretch the new owners' finances.
But O'Neil is in line to get the SOS call, although he is also a potential target for other jobs.
O'Neil, 42, was not in the market for work after his Wolves exit but is now prepared to take the right job.
Former Hull boss Ruben Selles is another live candidate.
Blades may also name a new director of football, with Bristol City's Brian Tinnion tipped for the post.
Sheffield United finished third in the Championship last term.
EFL club release 'gorgeous work of art' kit and even rival fans want to buy it
Wilder's men led the table at the start of April, but a poor end to the season saw them slip into the play-offs.
The Blades comfortably saw off Bristol City in the semi-finals, only to be beaten by Sunderland at Wembley.
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Farokh Engineer: I crashed the car as George Best and I were chatting up a blonde
The difficult part about writing up an interview with Farokh Engineer is choosing where to start. Do you go with one of his stories about George Best, Denis Compton, Sir Donald Bradman, Muhammad Ali or Sir Alex Ferguson, to name just a few of the sporting legends we chat about? Or how about this one. 'You know Pele once slept in that room?' he says pointing at an upstairs window of his detached house in Cheshire. 'I met him at a dinner in Stoke organised by Gordon Banks. He was playing Mere Golf Club the next day, which is right next to my house, so I said: 'Come over and stay.' 'My wife took him up a cup of tea in the morning, he was very nice. Then we played golf with Bobby.' With Bobby? 'Yes, Bobby Charlton.' It was a throwaway anecdote at the end of nearly two hours packed full of stories tumbling out of the 87-year-old Engineer, fuelled by regular cups of coffee brought to us in the garden by his wife Julie, and with their toddler grandson running around, playing at our feet in the warm sunshine with the family dog. Engineer made the north-west of England his home almost 60 years ago when he joined Lancashire as one of county cricket's pioneering overseas players and the dash and twinkle in the eye have not dimmed with age. True, two new knees and an upcoming heart-valve operation would make hooking Wes Hall off his nostrils a little more difficult these days than in 1967 when he almost made a hundred before lunch for India against West Indies. 'No helmet and just a pink plastic box that wasn't going to do anything,' he says about that innings. 'I loved fast bowling. The quicker they came, the quicker they went, that was my theory.' Indian players were paid 50 rupees a day back then for facing Hall and Charlie Griffith. The mind boggles at what Engineer, the first Indian poster boy of cricket who oozed flair and panache, would earn now in the IPL as an opening bat and keeper. 'Sachin Tendulkar once told me: 'If you were playing today, you would be by far the highest earner.'' Engineer played 46 Tests between 1961 and 1975 and appeared twice in the Rest of the World XI series against England in 1970 that later had Test status withdrawn. He was at Lancashire between 1968 and 1976, signing alongside his great friend Clive Lloyd. In a golden era of domestic one-day cricket, Engineer won the Gillette Cup four times and the Sunday League twice. 'I know he wears glasses but sign him and you won't regret it' 'I recommended a player called Clive Hubert Lloyd, actually I was talking to him only yesterday, and Cyril Washbrook was the chairman of cricket at Lancashire and he said: 'But Farokh, he wears glasses.' I just said: 'Mr Washbrook, I know he wears glasses but you sign him and you won't regret it.' And he was my room-mate for over 10 years and we had a great partnership. We travelled everywhere together and, oh, gosh, I don't know how we're still alive; we were both party animals. 'My friendship with George Best grew at that time too because he had just come over from Ireland.' George Best, was he a star by then? 'No, nor was I really. Time and again I used to leave him at midnight and say, 'George, come on, time to go' and he would say 'Rooky', that was my nickname because Farokh was too difficult for an Irishman to say. He would say: 'No, you go home.' He would go to bed at 2-3am and the next day score goals; genius. 'My best story with him was that I had this car sponsored by Quicks, a Ford garage near Old Trafford. I had a red Ford Escort – Lancashire colours. After training, I said: 'Come on, George, I will give you a lift in my new car.' We were passing through Stretford and stopped at the traffic lights. George started chatting up this blonde next to the traffic lights. He was Rogue No 1, I was Rogue No 2. We were having a giggle and then I started the car and went straight up the arse of the car in front. I had taken my eyes off the road. I said to the driver: 'Sorry my fault, but after all you don't see many blondes in Bombay.'' A hearty laugh follows that one. Despite the stories of a life that belongs to a different era, you just know Engineer would love playing now. Not once does he imply it was better in his day and he is hugely complimentary towards the current India team, now in England and preparing for the first Test at Headingley on June 20. But despite his allegiance to India, Lancashire is in his blood, and he speaks with as much pride about the Red Rose as playing for his country of birth. 'The club have been great to me. They have named a suite at the ground after me, what an honour. The people of Lancashire have been so kind, too. I was caught speeding twice by this young cop, and both times he let me go. 'My dad would kill me if I gave you a ticket,' he said. 'I'm feeling great for 87 but so many of my colleagues have been dropping like ninepins. Peter Lever just died and so I'm very grateful to God for life. I've always lived my life. I've always enjoyed my life. I've never just existed, and even at this age I'm active.' 'I was a bloody lunatic' Engineer ran a textile business in Manchester after retirement and was an ICC match referee for a while and briefly worked for Test Match Special, where he thinks he encountered racism for the only time in his long life in England. 'I thought I was doing well. Fred Trueman, Brian Johnston and Christopher Martin-Jenkins were really for me but there was one person who always put me down. And I just wondered, was it racism? I never experienced any racism on the field. 'I don't know the ins and outs of what happened at Yorkshire but Bumble [David Lloyd] was accused of being a racist in all that. I'm telling you, there's not a racist bone in Bumble's body. I know, because he was my team-mate for many years.' Engineer is an ambassador for Veterans Cricket India, run by his businessman friend Anand Nair, that holds tournaments all over the world for age groups from over-40s upwards. The Brylcreem boy of India in the 1960s can still pull in a commercial deal. 'They used to like it because I batted in a cap and so my hair was out. Palmolive and other companies offered much better money, but my contract was with Brylcreem and it was prestigious because of its history with Compton and Keith Miller.' There is a symmetry to the Compton association. A seven-year-old Engineer was in the stands at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai when Compton played in a Ranji Trophy match in 1945. 'He had just taken a fresh pack of chewing gum out and he saw me among the huge crowd, and he said: 'Would you like a chewing gum?' I was too nervous to say yes or no, and he just tossed it to me, and I caught it. 'Oh', he said, 'good catch.' And when I got to know Compo later, I said: 'I used to worship you.' That was one of the advantages of coming to England and playing county cricket. I met all my heroes. I was a voracious reader of cricket books and I used to read all their life stories – Compton, Godfrey Evans, Len Hutton.' Engineer was a keeper who would go for every catch, and dive around despite his size, which was bigger than the average keeper at the time. He kept to the great Indian spin quartet of Bishan Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagwath Chandrasekhar and Srinivas Venkataraghavan, and to Brian Statham at Lancashire. 'I was a bloody lunatic. I used to go for second-slip catches. I just thought, whatever a wicket-keeper can reach with his gloves on is the wicket-keeper's catch. When Jack Bond was captain at Lancs, the first slip was called Butlin's, you know, you go to Butlin's for a holiday because you never got a ball. 'I covered a huge area, and I enjoyed it. That was my domain. I wanted to keep wicket to Brian Statham, such a nice man. He said publicly if I was behind the stumps throughout his career he would have finished with twice as many victims. I said: 'George [Statham's nickname], you must have been drunk when you said that.' Because he had Godfrey Evans, who was my hero. 'In those days English bowlers used to pick the seam, it was almost allowed, with the result that Statham's inswinger when it pitched middle and off, coming in, I used to charge down the leg side because I would get so many leg-slip catches which were four runs before that. I got a couple of stumpings off him down the leg side. When the ball was not carrying I would stand up to the stumps. 'We were in the Cayman Islands once with Fred Trueman. It was past his time.' Engineer now breaks into his very good Trueman impression. ''I'm the quickest bowler in t'world.' And anyway I got a couple of stumpings off him. 'Stop it', Fred said. 'People will think I'm a slow bowler'. Legends of the game 'These people, just legends of the game. I'm so lucky… Chandrasekhar, Prasanna, Bedi, Venkat. The other three were pretty easy to keep to but Chandrasekhar was very interesting to keep to because he bowled about 62mph. Normally he spun the ball viciously both ways, without knowing himself which way the ball was going three quarters of the time because he was a polio victim, his wrist bent a bit further. 'Time and again he bowled a batsman with a googly and I said: 'Chandra, you tried to bowl a leg-spinner there, didn't you?' And he'd say: 'Yeah, yeah.' He was a very humble man. And I think he was the greatest spinner in the world. I could read him because I saw him grip the ball and saw the way it left his fingers. I saw it in the air and off the pitch. For me, it was like a split-second computerised effect because I could read him.' Engineer feels that '99 per cent' of modern keepers have technical problems. 'In T20 you can get away with a batsman who can keep but not in Test cricket. You've got to have a proper keeper, not a backstop. I've watched modern keepers and they get up too soon. They snatch the ball, which is OK standing back. Some people only half-squat. I found you had to be right down, so it was much easier to stay low to go for diving catches or catches that don't carry. It is much easier to come up than to come up and go down again – you lose a fraction of a second. So when they are playing [in the] sub-continent and the ball is lower and slower, they struggle.' Keeping was in Engineer's blood. He describes his childhood growing up in Bombay with his older brother Darius, who was a good club cricketer, and how keeping to him for the first time opened up his path in life. In the evenings after school he would throw a soft ball against a corrugated wall so it could bounce in any direction, and try to catch it. 'I went to Don Bosco School and my best friend was Shashi Kapoor, who would go on to be one of the great Bollywood actors. We were sitting on a bench in class yapping away one day when suddenly I saw this huge wooden duster hurled 100 miles per hour at us by the teacher. I'm telling you, he should have been a cover point for India. I think he would have hit the stumps every time. 'Instead of getting the hero roles he would have ended up in horror movies' 'Anyway, I saw this duster hurtling straight toward his [Kapoor's] face, and suddenly my sixth sense kicked in, I just stretched my hand out and caught the duster literally an inch from his face. I used to tease him that instead of getting the hero roles in films he would have ended up in horror movies if I hadn't caught that duster.' Engineer is still celebrated when he goes back to India every year, often when a birthday party is held in his honour. He was presented with a lifetime achievement award by the BCCI during the first England Test in Hyderabad last year but his links to Mumbai have faded. He sold his house on trendy Cuffe Parade years ago. 'I sold it for tuppence, and today it is probably worth about £40 million. The Ambanis live next door. I never imagined property would just go sky high all of a sudden. So, yeah, whenever I see that property, I feel a bit sick.' While we are chatting, Engineer's wife is searching for a Baggy Green cap given to him as a gift by Bradman, which excites the photographer but is somewhere in storage. Instead he poses with a silver bat awarded for being top run scorer in a series against England. There is a quote from Bradman on the back of Engineer's autobiography that describes him as one of the 'game's great ambassadors on and off the field'. The respect was formed during a tour to Australia. 'We were playing in Adelaide and I slipped over wearing rubber-soled shoes. Sir Don Bradman came into our dressing room and gave me a big telling off but invited me to his house for dinner. I had a date with Miss Adelaide that night, so I gave her number to one of my team-mates and told him to have a good time. 'I went to the Bradmans' house and just wanted a beer and a steak but they gave me carrot juice and a vegetarian meal, thinking that's what Indians ate and drank. Anyway, Sir Don gets out a projector and we start watching films of his innings. It is a bit odd, but he's Don Bradman. What do you say? He told me about this shot and that shot he played and said I was too flamboyant. As I left I gave him a gift and he went away and came back with a cap, his baggy green.' Engineer will be at Old Trafford for the India Test match in July. The struggles of his club this summer – coach and captain sacked and the team languishing in division two – have upset him. 'My heart bleeds. I can't bear to even open the papers. There is something radically wrong that needs to be rectified because Lancs are a great club. Bottom of the second division, I just can't believe it.' He thinks the retirement of Virat Kohli will help England but describes this India team as among the best to tour this country. 'They could probably pick two teams that would give England a run for their money.' A couple of weeks after our interview, I call to check on how the heart operation went. 'Yes, all good,' he laughs. 'I'm still alive and kicking.' The storyteller still has more tales to tell.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
The rich are fleeing Labour's Britain. We could all pay the price
For over a century, Britain has been a hub for wealthy expats escaping political tumult, oppression or simply seeking better opportunities. From the 'White Russians' fleeing the Bolshevik revolution to wealthy Chinese seeking a safe haven for their capital in the 2010s, the UK was a magnet for the rich. Now, though, the flows may be reversing. After Labour's move to scrap non-dom status and overhaul inheritance tax, there are growing signs that the 1pc may be fleeing. 'I'm still here, counting the days I'm allowed to stay, waiting for a miracle, which is not going to happen,' says 55-year-old Magda Wierzycka, who has lived in Britain for half a decade. Wierzycka fled Poland as a refugee under communism in the early 1980s before settling in South Africa, where she made millions. In 2019 she moved to the UK to start a venture capital business. 'We brought in about £500m and invested it in British innovation. Five years in, I effectively get told 'We don't need your money, and we don't want you in the country'.' Wierzycka, who was a non-dom until the status was abolished, can now only stay in Britain for 91 days a year before incurring tax on her global earnings and gains, with a lower limit on how many days she can work. As a result, she is reluctantly planning to return to South Africa. Reeves's decision to raise taxes on people like Wierzycka was a calculated gamble. The Chancellor hopes that most of the rich will choose to stay in Britain and pay higher taxes, boosting public coffers by £5bn a year. The money will help pay for free breakfast clubs for children and plug gaps in stretched public finances. Yet the list of wealthy emigres has been growing steadily since tax changes took effect April. It includes people like South African national Richard Gnodde, Goldman Sachs' best paid banker outside the US, Aston Villa co-owner Nassef Sawiris and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal. Those are the names we know of. How many others are leaving? 'We really don't know anything at this stage,' says Arun Advani, an associate professor of economics at the University of Warwick. 'The only way to know about what non-doms are doing is to look at the tax data. The data for the last tax year that ended in April, people don't even file those taxes until January of next year. 'Late filing is particularly prevalent at the top of the income distribution, where the £100 late fee is not really that costly. We don't really get that information here until, in I guess, 18 months.' It will be a nervous wait for the Chancellor. If 25pc of non-doms quit the UK, the Treasury would make no extra money from scrapping the tax status. If a third left, the UK would lose £700m in the first year of the policy, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). 'I love this country,' says entrepreneur Bassim Haidar, who was born in Nigeria but has Lebanese citizenship. 'We really integrated. We've made amazing friends.' He left before the changes took effect on April 6 and now splits his time between the United Arab Emirates, Greece and Italy. 'Just like we adapted here, we will adapt somewhere else.' Tipping point Predicting an exodus of the wealthy has often been a case of the boy who cried wolf. Yet several studies suggest something big may actually be under way this time. Even before Labour took power, Swiss bank UBS said the UK was on track to see the biggest departure of dollar-millionaires out of a group of 56 countries by 2028. Henley & Partners, which makes money from helping the world's wealthy move around, claimed Britain saw a record exodus of almost 11,000 millionaires last year. Some of its data was based on flimsy metrics like the locations people list on their LinkedIn profiles, however. The most robust analysis so far has come from Bloomberg, which found a surge in the number of directors moving abroad after analysing 5m company filings. Around 4,400 directors reported an overseas move in the last year, it said. The figure likely includes non-doms and British nationals moving in protest over recent tax changes. This includes stripping away inheritance tax business relief, a policy that could potentially force the sale of family businesses to pay tax bills. The changes also abolished the more than 200-year-old non-dom status in April, replacing it with a residence-based regime. This grants well-heeled newcomers four years of reprieve from being taxed on their foreign income and gains. However, in a major change, anything you own anywhere in the world – like a stake in your family business – becomes subject to UK inheritance tax after this period, and for up to 10 years after you leave. Non-doms have been a target for the taxman for a while. Jeremy Hunt, the former chancellor, cut back on the tax breaks in April last year before Reeves scrapped the relief altogether. Many non-doms say this was their tipping point. One describes it thus: 'It's like boiling a frog, except in this case the frog can jump out of the water.' 'Desperate situation' There were 68,900 non-doms living in Britain in the 2022 tax year, the latest HMRC data shows. They are typically employed in lucrative professions and are highly mobile. You would expect a high share to leave in any given year, which can make it difficult to discern genuine trends without hard evidence. One place to look for clues is in London's most well-heeled neighbourhoods. At private members' club Walbrook, in the City of London, between 20 and 50 clients have cancelled their memberships as a result of the tax changes. 'The exodus actually began last year,' says managing director Philip Palumbo. 'The City seems to lack confidence, purpose. It feels over-taxed, over-regulated, and we are haemorrhaging good people to artificial places like Dubai, which is just so unacceptable.' Wealth advisers tell clients that memberships, including for gyms and private clubs, can be used by the taxman to prove residency. As a result, other clubs have resorted to offering shorter-term options of up to 90 days, news reports suggest. It is not just clubland that is suffering. 'Very definitely, there's a reduction of customers – certainly customers from the Arab countries who had residences in London. They come here [in] far fewer [numbers] now,' says Brian Lishak, the 86-year-old co-founder of Savile Row tailor, Richard Anderson. There has also been a drop in demand for butlers and nannies, according to Joshua James from Super Private Staff. His firm helps source household staff for the very rich. 'We have observed a notable decline in the high-end household recruitment market in London. It's clear that opportunities are shifting. Strong demand is emerging in regions like the Middle East, Monaco, and America.' A surprising side effect of Reeves's tax changes may well be an exodus of Britain's finest butlers and nannies. 'It is worth saying, the appeal of a butler or nanny with a British accent remains attractive internationally,' James adds. Buyers of London's poshest houses in areas like Mayfair, Knightsbridge and St John's Wood are seeing financial crisis-level discounts, according to Savills. Prime central London prices are a fifth lower than at their peak in June 2014. The estate agent blamed the non-dom tax changes and stamp duty hikes. Interior designer Phillippa Thorp has witnessed several non-dom customers leave. 'Businesses like ours have survived on rich bankers and rich people coming here from all over the world. They've had their families here for 20 years, they would never have left but for this mad own-goal,' she laments. Thorp fears the skilled tradespeople she relies on such as painters and bronze workers will struggle to get by as a result. 'We're losing them and we're losing their skills, and they will never come back. It's desperate, the situation. There are an awful lot of people who don't know what to do. Should we let some people go? Do we pray that the Government is going to do something right for once? It just seems like one disaster after another,' she says. 'I can safely say it just gets worse. If I was a young me, I would never, ever start a business here.' Thorp's case underscores the broader risks from the tax crackdown. Few of Labour's voters will shed a tear if the super-rich decamp to Monaco or Dubai. But the exodus has a broader economic impact. It is measured in fewer pounds spent in Michelin-starred restaurants, fewer donations to galleries to support blockbuster exhibitions or wings, and fewer people employed to help and serve the wealthy, among other things. 'I had 16 staff [in the UK] – drivers, property managers, and so on,' says Haidar, the Nigerian-born Lebanese businessman. 'I'm down to two now. These guys have lost their jobs.' London's loss, Dubai's gain Just how big the eventual economic impact is depends on how many of the wealthiest choose to leave. 'It would be safe to say that a large number have left, full stop,' says Simon Gibb, a partner in the London private wealth team of Trowers & Hamlins. 'That is largely to do with the removal of trust protections both for income and capital gains tax, but ultimately inheritance tax was very much a deal-breaker.' Non-doms have traditionally sheltered income earned from foreign businesses by placing it in a trust abroad. However, such trusts will now be subject to a British inheritance tax bill of 6pc every 10 years after they die as long as it exists. Those inheriting the business may have to sell chunks of it to pay the tax bill, Gibb says. Many are more concerned about the tax rates in death rather than in life. The UK's loss is other countries' gain. Britons were the second biggest foreign buyers of property in Dubai last year. Philippe Amarante, managing partner at Henley & Partners Middle East, says the United Arab Emirates is welcoming the wealthy with open arms. 'It's pro-migration. It can take you five days or two days even to come to Dubai and set up the company. It will take you a few days, a few weeks, to set up local domestic bank accounts and get you going,' he says. Parents who in the past came to Britain to put their children through school are now going to Dubai, he says. 'The clients that we have are saying ' you don't have knife crime, right? You don't have fist fights in the school courtyards'. The UK – particularly with crime and other elements – maybe the overall proposition has somewhat decreased.' Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, says: 'It is a crisis of the Government's making. If [Reeves] would reverse the provisions about bringing global assets within UK inheritance tax, this flight from the UK would end tomorrow.' The issue is rapidly rising up the political agenda. Richard Tice, a Reform MP and the party's deputy leader, warns that Britain is 'seeing the greatest brain drain and wealth drain in my adult lifetime'. 'Every day of the week, I hear people say 'my friends are leaving,'' he says. 'It's truly terrifying. All these ludicrous people from the Left thinking the solution to our problems is to have a wealth tax. There won't be any wealth left in the country. It's a mobile world. This is a battle royale of hearts and minds.' Reform, which is currently polling as Britain's most popular party, has pledged to reverse the non-dom changes and scrap inheritance tax completely. The promise would leave a shortfall just shy of £20bn in public finances by the end of the decade, which Tice says would be filled 'by scrapping stupid net zero' amongst other things. A big mistake? The Treasury always expected people to leave in response to the non-dom and inheritance tax changes. The problems arise if more people go than expected. When Reeves announced her changes in October's Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said the measures would raise £5.2bn a year by the end of the decade. This reflects only the direct tax take, not wider impacts on investment, staff and businesses relying on these very wealthy individuals. The fiscal watchdog assumed that 12pc of non-doms without trusts and 25pc with trusts would go. However, the OBR warned that predicting behavioural responses was difficult. Reeves has softened some measures slightly since October after a backlash from the wealthy, but the OBR said the tweaks did 'not materially affect' its forecasts. Britain relies more on high earners than many other countries, with the top 1pc paying 28pc of all income tax. If you broaden it to the top 10pc, the figure rises to 60pc of receipts. The Chancellor risks getting no revenues at all from the policy if more than 25pc of non-dom taxpayers leave, according to analysis by the Centre for Economics and Business Research. If as many as half relocate, Reeves could end up with a black hole of £12.2bn a year by the end of the decade in a worst-case scenario, the CEBR said. Chris Walker, a former Treasury economist, recently published a study suggesting 10pc of non-doms had already left by the end of last year, though it was based in part on the Henley & Partners analysis focused on LinkedIn. Regardless, Walker says: 'I think the OBR and the Government have underestimated the behavioural response. My gut instinct is that the Government probably won't lose money. But I would be surprised if it got even half of the £34bn it's projecting over five years. It's either going to be tax rises or spending cuts or a combination of the two to fill any gap that arises.' Advani, the economist, is less concerned about a wealth exodus. He believes there will be an initial spike and then the departures will tail off. Other people will also come in their place under the four-year regime, he expects. But he warns: 'It seems to me completely crazy that we've designed a regime that will continue to be a huge discouragement from people investing in the UK. That seems like a really big mistake.' 'Tax me more' Anyone betting on another Labour about-turn on the issue is likely to be disappointed. Those on the Left argue that the exodus of the wealthy is simply fabricated. 'All I can say is I don't see that,' says Stephen Kinsella, who describes himself as a 'patriotic millionaire'. 'I have lots of friends who have more money than I do. The people I talk to have got serious money. Most of them have their kids at school here, their family is here, and they just like the life and the culture and everything else this country offers you.' Kinsella is part of a lobbying group of wealthy individuals pushing for a 2pc wealth tax on anyone with more than £10m of assets to help repair Britain's crumbling state. People who claim there is a wealth exodus 'have such a vested interest', he argues. 'Who's more credible – them or us? I'm someone who says 'tax me more'. It would make no sense for me to do that if I genuinely believe that a lot of wealthy people would leave and therefore the UK tax take would go down. 'The wealth management companies have an interest in talking this up and talking up interest in their services. I'm not saying that being cynical, but it's obvious this narrative suits them.' Alex Cobham, the chief executive of Tax Justice, claims the whole notion of a wealth exodus has simply been whipped up the media and others who benefit from it. 'Anyone who says that they can tell you anything definitive about that is either kidding themselves or they're not being straight with you,' he says. 'Where did the spin come from that took these really thin and questionable numbers and turned them into this kind of headline news of 30 stories every day throughout 2024?' Cobham claims there is 'solid evidence' that tax changes generally lead to only small waves of migration among millionaires. 'Everybody's starting point should be that there isn't a significant concern here,' Cobham says. Regardless, lobbying groups are still trying to convince the Government to backtrack on some of the changes. Leslie MacLeod-Miller, founder of Foreign Investors for Britain, says: 'It's not just tax revenues, even though the non-doms contribute approximately £9bn per year in tax. Some families were spending between £20m and £40m a year on their services. Those go to cleaners, shopping, restaurants or hairdressers. The golden geese are leaving. I want to try and keep them here.' Some non-doms are stubbornly holding out hope too, but optimism is fading. Wierzycka is still hoping 'that some reason prevails'. She is sad to leave. So are many others. 'I think the UK is one of the greatest countries on the face of the planet,' says one wealthy foreigner who is reluctantly headed to Dubai with his family. 'I have a huge affinity for this place, and I'm leaving because the financial impact on our family is so substantial.'
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Trade union bosses' pay shows all that's wrong with Labour's Britain
Are the leaders of Britain's trade unions among our Prime Minister's beloved 'working people'? While most have impeccable workerist credentials, their salaries may exclude them from the class of people who, in Sir Keir Starmer's vision, deserve to be exempted from Labour's tax hikes. Only a tiny few hit the £201,000 necessary to join the 1pc club of top earners, but many are 45pc additional rate taxpayers, earning above the threshold of £125,140. They certainly take home multiples of last year's UK median household disposable income of £36,700, as recorded by the Office for National Statistics. Union general secretaries, as a rule, earn much more than the people they represent. Ironically, this is not true of the UK's highest paid union boss. Maheta Molango, the Swiss-born chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, was paid £649,234 last year, with additional pension contributions of £56,617, making for a total package of £794,198. The footballers' union – and there is no doubt that it counts as a union, as it is registered as such with the Certification Officer to whom they must all file annual returns, and is one of the 48 affiliates of the Trades Union Congress – has over 5,800 members in total. The bulk of its income comes from a more select group: premiership players. They pay over £25m in dues annually. Ultra-high-earning professional footballers are among the most heavily unionised trades in the UK. Let us turn to the more run-of-the-mill unions, such as the 11 that are affiliated to the Labour Party. These range in size from the once mighty National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), clinging on to its last 196 members (of whom only 103 pay contributions) as it holds out against the threat of extinction, to the behemoths of the public sector-focused Unison and the all-purpose Unite, with over one million members each. The pay packages for the general secretaries of these Labour-affiliated unions range around £150,000. Mick Whelan of the train drivers' Aslef – a man with an impeccable record for imposing misery on commuters – was paid £126,067, plus a £24,015 pension contribution in 2023, a package worth £150,082 in total. Community's Roy Rickhuss received £129,523, coming to nearly £166,000 with benefits. The GMB, with its over 575,000 members, rewards its general secretary with a package worth around £156,000, with the Unison chief on a similar deal. The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) is among the most militant and proudly workerist, even disaffiliating from Labour in 2004 in outrage over Tony Blair's reformism, and only rejoining in 2015 when Jeremy Corbyn became leader. Its chief is on an un-proletarian £97,857 plus benefits, a total of £126,646. The NUM's general secretary, Chris Kitchen, has to be content with rather less. The 2023 return shows him receiving £43,136 in salary, £56,043 if pension contributions and employer's National Insurance are included. This still amounts to £540 for each of the NUM's dues-paying members. The National Education Union (NEU) is not affiliated to Labour, but is certainly very much of the Left. Its general secretary, Daniel Kebede, receives what has clearly become the going rate for the leader of a substantial union, a package coming in last year at£153,320. The NEU's staffing bill totals over £10.6m. Can pay packages that are so out of kilter with those of most ordinary union members be justified? The market for general secretaries is not like that for the vast majority of jobs. Unions do not have to pay top whack to compete for, and hold on to, the best talent out there. Until Matt Wrack's move from leading the FBU to being appointed head of the NAS/UWT teaching union this year, such transfers were unheard of. The qualification for being a general secretary is like that for being an MP, winning an election – and nothing else. The difference is that the turnout for union votes is vastly lower than even the woeful levels seen in the UK for council elections. The key skill potential general secretaries need to acquire is the ability to make backroom deals with other internal union factions to build a coalition that can get them over the line and into office. The unions have no need to reward their leaders so munificently. The same people would almost certainly run for these same posts if their rewards were more closely in line with the people they represented. Much of the far-Left have long argued that union leaders' pay is excessive and that it means they lose touch with the everyday struggles of their membership. There have been demands that these salaries should be pegged to what a member of that union typically earns. Perhaps unsurprisingly, when the far-Left wins high office, these noble sentiments are somehow set aside. Even proud Marxists don't find it easy to say no to boss-class pay. In the case of union remunerations, the egalitarian instinct is probably the correct one. It would lead to much lower salaries for most general secretaries, although the footballers' champion Molango would be in line for a substantial rise to the £3m average pay of a Premiership player.
