Life

TV review: The angry left-behinders need to make their own fortune

Billy Foley

Billy Foley

Billy has almost 30 years’ experience in journalism after leaving DCU with a BAJ. He has worked at the Irish Independent, Evening Herald and Sunday Independent in Dublin, the Cork-based Evening Echo and the New Zealand Herald. He joined the Irish News in 2000, working as a reporter and then Deputy News Editor. He has been News Editor since 2007

Guy Martin as travel presenter is starting to get a bit predictable, writes Billy Foley 
Guy Martin as travel presenter is starting to get a bit predictable, writes Billy Foley  Guy Martin as travel presenter is starting to get a bit predictable, writes Billy Foley 

WHAT Britain Earns, Channel 4, Tuesday at 9pm

The huge inequality of western society is regarded as one of the problems of our times.

The anger of the left-behind generation has been suggested as the reason for the election of Donald Trump, the success of Brexit and the possible elevation of Marine Le Pen to the Elysee Palace.

These are the people who did not benefit from globalisation and suffer most from the downward wage pressure caused by immigration.

They are a mixture of both traditional left and right, taking inspiration from the Occupy movement on the left, anti-immigration parties on the right and the anti-global trade deal positions of both.

The anger is driven by the startling inequality which shows that one per cent of the population controls 50 per cent of the world's wealth.

What is forgotten however, is that these mythical one per cent of fat cats don't last for too long.

That's because the one per cent is fluid and most people don't stay up for very long.

As presenter Mary Portas found out when she visited the creator of the Sunday Times Rich List for this programme, there have been radical changes to the super-wealthy in Britain in the last couple of decades.

For instance, in 1989 the richest person in Britain was the Queen, the epitome of old wealth.

Now, she's in 319th place.

In 1989, around 30 per cent of the people on the rich list had inherited their money, now that figures sits at around 5 per cent.

Studies in the US show the same movement in and out of the top one per cent.

Every year there is an 11 per cent turnover in the personalities ranked in the top one per cent and - read this one slowly - less than one per cent of the top one per cent spend six consecutive years in the ranking.

What Britain Earns was a fascinating account of a wage structure which sees some people on minimum wage and WPP boss Martin Sorrell take home a package of salary, pension and shares worth £70 million a year.

What it pointed to was a society with inequality problems, but also a meritocracy where the brightest, the risk takers and the entrepreneurs can soar to amazing heights within a generation.

Rather than protesting against the top one per cent like they were immovable feudal kings, the angry left-behinders should put their energy into making their own fortune.

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Our Guy in China, Channel 4, Monday at 9pm

Guy Martin as travel presenter is starting to get a bit predictable.

The producers are sticking to the formula - motorbikes, engineering and ports - but Our Guy in China didn't feel that different from Our Guy in India.

It's Guy Martin's authenticity that makes him a good television presenter. When he's talking about speed, motorbikes, engines and trucks he speaks engagingly and with sincerity.

He is not a professional television presenter and cannot do travel this week, Strictly Come Dancing next week and Children in Need before Christmas.

Thus, Guy could be himself when he visited the Shanghai port.

`I couldn't be more excited … it's the biggest container park in the world,' he said, adding: `I love me docks.'

That's all fine and well, but he said almost the same thing on a trip to India. And while he helped build an electric motorbike in China he bought a classic 2-stroke motorbike in India.

There can't be much time these days for Guy to devote to his day job as a truck mechanic, meaning Guy's in danger of becoming the thing he hates - a television celebrity.