Charmer Has a Severe Case of Upper Class Angst

Sam Pizzigati Editor, Too Much online magazine

The business press has pinned the label “charming” on Iain Tait, the 40-something with an inside track at becoming the top banana at one of the UK wealthy’s top wealth managers. But Tait himself acknowledges that money managers can be “strongly opinionated” and “picky.” What these days has Tait at his prickly pickiest? The prospect of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn becoming the UK’s next prime minister. His wealthy clients, Tait told one British journalist last week, are worrying themselves sick about Corbyn’s egalitarian, pro-worker leanings: “It is now, without a doubt, the first thing that clients ask us: ‘What can we do to protect our wealth against Corbyn?’” Fears about Corbyn, Tait adds, “have doubled over the past couple of weeks.” What are Tait and his wealthy pals not particularly worried about? The new stats showing that British workers have just experienced the weakest paycheck decade since the 1870s.

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Sam Pizzigati edits Too Much, the online weekly on excess and inequality. He is an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. Last year, he played an active role on the team that generated The Nation magazine special issue on extreme inequality. That issue recently won the 2009 Hillman Prize for magazine journalism. Pizzigati’s latest book, Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality that Limits Our Lives (Apex Press, 2004), won an “outstanding title” of the year ranking from the American Library Association’s Choice book review journal.

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