A former financial trader turned social justice YouTuber earned the ire of Fiona Bruce on Question Time last night after he dared to have a go at her over her six-figure BBC salary.
Gary Stevenson, a former Citibank trader, made an unsubstantiated claim on the programme that the 36-year BBC veteran and other panel members are richer now than they were at the start of the pandemic.
The Dartford panel had been asked in the show’s opening by audience member Michael Kent whether ‘benefit claimants or billionaires’ should take the weight of the deficit after £5bn of welfare cuts were unveiled in the Spring Statement.
Stevenson – who became a multi-millionaire in his former job and now rails against ‘moray decay’ in the banks – appeared to suggest that the deficit had only grown larger, and living standards had fallen, because of a failure to tax the rich.
‘Does anyone know what the total government deficit is since the beginning of Covid? It’s a trillion pounds now, which is £20,000 for every single adult in the county.
‘So if every single one of you is not £20,000 cash richer, someone else has your money. Does anyone know who has that trillion pounds? It is the richest people in the country. This is a problem of growing wealth inequality.’
‘These men and women are not £20,000 cash richer,’ he said, gesturing with his pen at the audience, some of whom looked around.
‘I’ll tell you who probably is – every single person on this panel, OK?’ He did not exclude himself.
Former financial trader turned social justice campaigner Gary Stevenson earned the ire of Fiona Bruce after he appeared to suggest she was wealthier now than in 2020
The YouTuber – who has claimed repeatedly to be Citibank’s top trader – provoked a strong reaction from much of the Question Time panel on Thursday night
Fiona Bruce looked incredibly sceptical that she and fellow panel members were probably £20k richer
The panel included Labour MP Darren Jones – who is also Chief Secretary to the Treasury – Conservative MP Richard Holden and Lib Dem MP Daisy Cooper, as well as Camilla Tominey, executive editor of the Daily Telegraph.
As Stevenson made his accusation, Mr Jones shook his head and said ‘no’; Ms Cooper raised her eyebrows and looked down; Ms Tominey audibly said ‘no’, looking disgusted at the claim; Mr Holden rolled his eyes.
‘Hang on,’ said a visibly irritated Fiona Bruce, who raised her hands as Stevenson continued to the claim the ‘richest are getting richer’.
‘Don’t include us in all this,’ she said, looking increasingly sceptical.
‘I don’t know if you’ve seen the way the BBC works but they’re not exactly raising salaries right now.’
Fiona Bruce is the BBC’s sixth best-paid star, earning around £405,000 a year. She took a salary cut in 2022 after her salary dropped from around £410,000 to £395,000.
Asked what the solution is, Stevenson said: ‘We have to shift the tax system. We have a tax system which taxes working people 30, 40, 50, 60 per cent while people like the Duke of Westminster can inherit £10bn and pay nothing.
‘If you do that, wealth will be sucked out of the middle class. It has already completely bankrupted the working class, it will bankrupt the government, and there will be poverty. Why are we taxing working people more than billionaires?’
Ms Bruce pointed out that several countries had repealed wealth taxes because they ‘don’t bring in that much revenue’.
Figures from analytics firm New World Wealth suggest 10,800 millionaires and 12 billionaires left Britain last year amid rising wealth taxes.
Stevenson stood outside the Treasury on Tuesday night ahead of the Spring Statement to demand taxes on the super-rich.
Stevenson was a former financial trader who made his fortune at Citibank before burning out and retiring to become a social justice campaigner
He spoke outside the Treasury on Tuesday (pictured) to demand new wealth taxes ahead of the Spring Statement
Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones (pictured) said welfare wasn’t working ‘the way it was designed to’
He said then: ‘There is no other way. If you don’t tax the rich, their wealth will grow and it will grow and it will squeeze out your family.’
The activist, who now runs a YouTube channel called Garys Economics, has repeatedly claimed he became a millionaire after betting Citibank money on falling interest rates, making it $35m in the process.
However, his claims he became Citibank’s ‘number one trader in the world’ have been disputed by former colleagues. The Financial Times reported that several former workmates described him as having ‘delusions of grandeur’.
One, Jeff Feig, said: ‘His claim about being the most profitable trader at Citi in any one year is laughable and clearly just an outlandish fib.’
Stevenson, in response to the reports, said he stood by his comments about his performance at Citibank.
He left the banking world in 2014 after burning out, taking deferred Citigroup stock of at least £1.5million with him.
During the discussions on welfare cuts, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones said the welfare system had ‘got to a place where it wasn’t supporting people in a way it was designed to,’ with one in eight young people not in work or education.
Ms Bruce challenged the Labour minister on whether it made sense to push 50,000 more children into relative poverty with benefit cuts while also developing a strategy to reduce child poverty.
Jones – who has just apologised for a ‘tactless’ remark comparing the cuts to cutting a child’s pocket money – added: ‘We’re doing everything we can to create the opportunity of well-paid work and to help children in the process.’
The cuts include freezing the health element of Universal Credit at £97 per week until 2029/30 for existing applicants, and cutting it in half for new applicants the health element of universal credit cut in half to £50pw for new claimants and then frozen.
Mr Jones was blasted by an audience member who has a disabled daughter, who wondered why the cuts were being made while a 2.8 per cent pay rise was agreed by MPs in the Commons on Monday, two days before cuts were agreed.
‘You’re taking (money) from my daughter and you’re putting it in your pocket. That’s how she sees it,’ he fumed.
‘Is it a bit awkward, in the circumstances?’ chair Ms Bruce asked.
The Spring Statement included a commitment to claw back an extra £1bn a year from tax dodgers.
