Super-rich warned of a backlash over inequality

In the ballroom of the five-star Savoy hotel on the Strand in central London, the super-rich and their advisers were last month advised that they may soon need to watch out for people with "pitchforks and torches" unless they do more to use their fortunes to help the millions struggling with the cost of living crisis.

- Rupert Neate

At an investment conference organised by Spear's wealth management magazine, members of the global elite and their financial teams were told by progressive advisers that there was a "real risk of actual insurrection" and "civil disruption" if the inequality gap between rich and poor was allowed to widen as a result of energy and food price hikes hitting households.

Julia Davies, a founding member of Patriotic Millionaires UK, a group of super-rich people calling for the introduction of a wealth tax, warned that global poverty and the climate emergency were going to get "so much worse" unless the wealthy did more to help poorer citizens.

"Everyone can say it is somebody else's responsibility," Davies said. "But it is the wealthiest in society who are the people who can actually really do something about it.