He didn't actually say that this morning, but he may as well have. He rejected any kind of limits at the top (I like this policy, but I think I'm in a minority) and then proceeded to talk about two solutions ending welfare dependency and encouraging aspiration. Two things struck me about what he said; the first was that while both are noble enough goals, to my mind they are the kind of thing politicians say when they're afraid to bite the bullet and actual suggest a policy that actually does something, the second is that he appears to have missed out a very large section of society.

What nobody has appeared to have picked up on today was the shocking rise in people living in poverty in the UK. 

In 2006/7 300,000 more pensioners and 100,000 more children are official classed as living in poverty.  As ever, the share of the income received by the top 10% keeps growing and the bottom 10% keeps falling making the gap bigger than at any time during the Thatcher period.

Now the usual moans will come from New Labourites - what about tax credits, minimum wage, child benefit rises etc.  Of course progress has been made but it has been limited and has not made the UK more equal. 

By sticking to a policy of refusing to tax the wealthy and large corporations more we are heading towards levels of inequality in the US & Hong Kong rather than doing as well or better than Scandinavia. A Compass thinker recently suggested a policy of 60% tax on income over 80,000 pounds and 70% tax on income over 150,000 pounds to pay for raising the personal allowance to 15,000 a year.  A vote winner if you ask me.  Will New Labour entertain it?  Will they Nelly.  I just wish they had the bottle to admit that the growing gap between rich and poor they simply don't care about no more.