Think £150,000 a year doesn’t make you rich? Metro readers disagree…

Readers aren’t impressed by a £150,000 earner complaining about their money problems…

■ Stefan from Watford says not everyone earning £150,000 a year is ‘rich’. I hope you recognise that while your worries in life are valid, they come from a place of privilege that many people in this country (and even more across the world) do not have.

While you worry about paying for your kids’ private education, some parents are worried about giving their children enough money to actually travel to colleges using an Oyster card. While you worry about suing local authorities, many are crippled under bills that mean they have to choose between basic necessities in life, such as warmth and food. While you worry about paying for a secondary property, some people rent or can barely afford their own.

You may think these are exaggerated circumstances but I am a teacher and come face to face with young people for whom this is a very real experience.
Georgia, Hertfordshire

■ I admire Stefan for bravely voicing what can only be described as an unpopular opinion but it is absolutely ludicrous to suggest that someone making £150,000 a year is not ‘rich’.

While I’m sure that the struggle of affording to pay for private education for his children and maintaining a second property is a real one, that they can be afforded at all is definition enough to describe a person as ‘rich’.
Richard Palmer, via email

■ So sorry to hear of Stefan’s troubles paying private school fees, maintenance on his investment flat and his legal fees. Nobody wants to punish higher earners or guilt him into an apology for his good fortune. It’s just that at a time when millions are struggling to simply feed their kids, pay their rent or mortgage on their only home and can’t even begin to think of the financial cost of going to court, many feel that the money going towards the tax breaks, for now, is better spent elsewhere.
Ed, Portsmouth

■ I earn £140,000 a year, wake up at the crack of dawn, finish after all my staff have left the office, work on weekends and take on a considerable mental toll – because that is my job.

I’ve spent 20 years climbing the ladder to earn what I’m earning now. I’ve worked incredibly hard, so why shouldn’t I get a tax break?Mi
chelle, London

■ Stefan, I don’t think you do 
appreciate the difficulties faced by 
lower earners. The problems you outline demonstrate that you have choices in life that others who work just as hard 
as you for just as many hours would 
love to have.

My children would also like ‘the best start in life’ and I would also like ‘a tax break’. And yes, I’ve also worked ‘damn hard’ in my life.
Jayne, London

■ You don’t seem to grasp real hardship, Stefan, and you are deluded with your comments. You are able to put two children through private education; you have a second home for profit; and you have the luxury of being able to afford legal costs. My heart bleeds for you when thinking of the people choosing between eating and heating…
Ray Brodrick, Romford

■ And the award for the most tone-deaf letter of all time goes to Stefan. So you’ve chosen to send your children to private school and you have a second home when thousands are homeless or on the brink of no longer being able to afford their mortgages. And you think you’re the one that deserves a break? People in this country are starving.
Laura, London

Get Sunak back on track

■ Christine’s comment that the mini-budget will lead to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer (MetroTalk, Wed) is absolutely right. Even the International Monetary Fund has warned that inequality between rich and poor is the potential outcome of this hastily cobbled together mini-budget. My suggestion to the PM and her chancellor is to urgently seek the advice of former chancellor Rishi Sunak, who knows a thing or two about economics and who warned about the potential dangers of uncosted tax cuts during the Tory leadership election.
Al, Charlton

■ One must feel sorry for Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng reaching the highest and second-highest positions in government, only to have to immediately deal with the pound’s dire financial situation. Politicians on all sides must work together to save our fragile economy instead of scoring cheap political points.
Dominic Shelmerdine, London

How to avoid asteroid Armageddon

■ Oh dear, I do hope Nasa know what they’re doing, crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid to see if they can change its course. It seems an obvious question, but what if they were to smash one directly in our direction by mistake? There’s no need to check this out because if an asteroid was to head our way, we know what the solution is. We urgently need to call Bruce Willis (left) from the film Armageddon and Morgan Freeman from Deep Impact to sort it out quickly.
Dec, Essex

Tell Starmer this crisis is global

■ It’s easy for Sir Keir Starmer to say don’t forget or forgive the Conservative government’s mishandling of the economy at the next general election (Metro, Wed) but this economic crisis is global, not just the UK’s. No one in power has control of the crisis, so it doesn’t matter who’s in power – they can’t stop what’s coming.
Roger, Wolverhampton

■ How does Starmer hope to give Britain this so-called fresh start when he proclaims that there is so much to clear up? Idle promises.
Sharon, by email

■ Labour delegates have voted in favour of the party to include a commitment to introduce proportional representation, though the policy is not expected to be in its manifesto. One look at Italy with its perpetual elections – and then horse-trading to form a government – surely demonstrates the reason why we should stick with the status quo.
John, Canvey Island

■ For too long our first-past-the-post voting system has given us governments that have enjoyed 100 per cent of the power with the support of well under 50 per cent of the vote. It artificially reduces Labour’s and smaller parties’ share of the vote by encouraging tactical voting or not voting at all if you live in a safe seat.
Alan Yearsley, Sheffield

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