Your article (UK spends more financing inequality in favour of rich than rest of Europe, report finds, 27 November) states that Britain is the second most unequal country, after the US. I live in the Netherlands, which has been following neoliberal policies for at least the last 30 years. These have led to it becoming the most unequal country in Europe, as well as now becoming an extreme rightwing country. These latter two facts are, I am sure, closely related.
According to a 2022 policy review on asset distribution commissioned by the Dutch government, the richest 1% in the country own 26% of the wealth and the richest 10% own 61%. In Britain, according to the Office for National Statistics, the top decile own 43% of all wealth. This is not a race to the bottom, but it does mean that what has happened in Britain has been mirrored across the whole of the rich west, and explains the rise of the populist right. What makes Britain unique is not its disproportionate wealth distribution, but that the populist right are, and have long been, members of the ruling party.
Brian Marler
Bergen op Zoom, the Netherlands
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