6th May 2023
Night moves – rehearsals in Central London for the coronation of King Charles III
Travellers on British trains and the London underground from Friday to Monday this weekend will find themselves subject to a message from King Charles and Queen Camilla, wishing them a wonderful coronation weekend, a safe and pleasant journey and concluding with a final plea from Charles to “remember, please mind the gap.”
“The coronation is a rare and exciting event and we very much look forward to welcoming passengers with this special message,” said Jacqueline Starr, chief executive of the Rail Delivery Group, which represents Britain’s rail industry.
The recording will be played in all 2,570 railway stations throughout the UK, the group said.
For much of the country this example of the wit and wisdom of the newly anointed royal couple will go down like a lead balloon. Self awareness has never been a key characteristic of the British ruling class and its royal representatives, who are clearly oblivious to the fact that “the gap” will mean many different things to many people across the country.
The gap between the costs of the coronation knees up itself, an estimated £100 million, compared to the need to pay nurses, junior doctors, postal workers, rail workers, teachers and others a decent wage is one such difference. There is also the growing gap between the rich and the poor. In 2022, incomes for the poorest 14 million people fell by 7.5%, whilst incomes for the richest fifth saw a 7.8% increase. For the same year households in the bottom 20% of the population had, on average, a disposable income of £13,218, whilst the top 20% had £83,687.
Compared to other developed countries Britain has a very unequal distribution of income, with the second highest level of income inequality in Europe, although it less unequal than the United States which is the world leader in this regard.
These are gaps which we all ought to be mindful of.
When it comes to overall wealth in Britain the gap is even wider than income. In 2020, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) calculated that the richest 10% of households hold 43% of all wealth. The poorest 50%, by contrast, own just 9%.
Looking more broadly at the Commonwealth, 14 nations of which King Charles will be Head of State. Of the 56 Commonwealth countries 12 are categorised among the world’s least developed countries (LDC), an official United Nations designation, covering 46 of the world’s poorest countries.
The economic gap between LDCs and the rest of the world has been increasing. GDP per capita for the LDC group represented 15 percent of the world average in 1971, but by 2019 this had declined to less than 10 percent. In short, the rich nations are getting richer while the poor get poorer.
That 12 of the 46 nations categorised as LDC by the United Nations are part of the Commonwealth says much for the supposed magnanimity of the British ruling class amongst this ‘family of nations’. A thinly veiled cover for exploitation and expropriation if ever there was one!
This is a gap we ought to be mindful of.
Latest figures for military spending show British arms spending as the fifth highest in the world, at $52.9 billion (2020 figures), this being the highest of any European country. In April, the IMF published new forecasts for the world economy. The IMF expects inflation rates to slow and forecasts British GDP to fall by 0.3% in 2023, the lowest figure in the G7, with growth of 1.0% in 2024.
The strain of the military budget, under investment in new technologies and the role of Britain as a tax haven for the rich are clearly burdens upon economic growth. CND has calculated that replacing Trident, Britain’s nuclear weapons system, will end up costing at least £205 billion, and that is before taking into account that Ministry of Defence projects typically go well over budget. This will not only add to the strain on the British economy but will take more resources away from the real needs for schools, hospitals and investment in renewable energy sources.
A huge gap exists between the illusory need for weapons of mass destruction and the real need to invest in ways to save the planet from the certainty of global warming and its consequences.
Being a republic is not in itself a guarantee of equality however. Unelected monarchy and Parliamentary representation is the peculiar combination which capitalism has evolved in Britain to protect the rich and privileged. However, class division does take Republican forms elsewhere. Britain is pipped by Italy in the inequality in income stakes in Europe for example. France and Germany may have dispensed with Kings and Queens long ago but remain hugely unequal societies.
The self styled home of the brave and land of the free, the United States, is the world leader in inequalities in both wealth and income. At nearly $800 billion per annum the US also far outstrips allcomers in spend on weapons of mass destruction to defend the rights and privileges of its elite class.
Other gaps could be explored. The gender pay gap. The likelihood of arrest or harassment as a black youth in London and other major cities. The gap between the recently announced profits of energy giants, Shell and BP, compared to the ability of working class people to pay their bills. The list goes on.
In minding these gaps getting rid of the anachronism of an unelected monarch is merely a first step, though an important symbolic one. The real struggle remains that of overturning the system in which inequality, exploitation and injustice are embedded, capitalism itself. The people’s of the former Soviet Union and much of Eastern Europe have found that living in a state orientated towards socialist development was quite different to the cut throat world of capitalism they now inhabit.
The gap between socialism and capitalism is the biggest one we have to bridge.
Avanti Populo wishes everyone a safe journey, wherever you are going and whatever you may be doing this weekend but don’t just mind the gap, get as mad as hell about it and resolve to take action to close it sooner rather than later!
Avanti Populo 