The £67 Million Pie That Could Change Britain

As billionaires clinked glasses in Davos, Oxfam did something rather clever. They opened a pie shop.

Not just any pie shop, mind you. They called it Pie Society – a one-day affair in East London that served pastry with a generous helping of truth about wealth inequality.

The setting was F. Cooke in Hoxton. The agency behind it, Blurred. The approach? Delightfully simple.

Here was the menu: The 'People's Pie & Mash' cost £6. Perfectly reasonable for you and me. But for Britain's billionaires? They offered 'The Upper Crust Special' at £67 million per serving. That's precisely what they'd owe under a 2% wealth tax.

Now, the public rather likes this idea. A 2% annual tax on fortunes over £10 million could bring in £24 billion yearly. Oxfam made this serious point without being serious about it. That's the trick, isn't it?

"It's as easy as pie," said Rhaea Russell-Cartwright from Oxfam. "Unless you know some very wealthy people, even your richest friend's richest friend wouldn't get a bill."

The timing was no accident. While the World Economic Forum gathered the elite, Pie Society reminded ordinary folk of something startling: Britain's billionaires earn enough in ten minutes to cover a family's groceries for an entire year.

Sometimes the best way to talk about big numbers is with a small pie.