NUMBER ONE HYDE PARK

You may have seen last week the opening celebration of four new blocks of 80 flats in Hyde Park. Some 50 had already been bought, and the “guests” included billionaires from the Gulf States and Russia. The Sheikh Prime Minister of Qatar has bought several of these flats (he is joint owner of the company that controls the flats). Other buyers came from the U.S., Eastern Europe and China, amongst whom were plutocrats, potentates and technology billionaires.

These flats are different, even for London. The four penthouses on top of the four blocks have already changed hands for up to £135 million each, and the cheapest homes, one bedroom flats, were going for £5.75 million. They represent a new high for residential property anywhere in the world, and they revel in unlimited luxury; high quality polished marble and European oak is everywhere. They are, of course, bomb proof, and they have “panic rooms”.

The venture was a gamble for the property developers involved, but clearly they hit the jack pot! The sales have reached £1 billion already. There is talk now of others being built. The government is not likely to object, having netted £36 million already in Stamp Duty - there is always money to be made out of the rich if you know how.

One newspaper report commented, “(this) confirms London as the favoured playground and tax haven of the international elite”. Unfortunately it is a playground in the midst of a very depressed property market for ordinary people, and in the midst of a nation in which one in five young people are now unemployed and are very unlikely ever to own the smallest and cheapest of properties. It grotesquely highlights the difficult times in which we live. “A favoured playground for the rich” is not really the highest honour that could be paid to our nation’s capital at this time. Or indeed at any time! It is in fact an appalling condemnation.

It is exactly the sort of scenario that Amos addressed 2,700 years ago in his own severe warning to the rich of his day. As he pointed out,it is extremely dangerous to have such wealth when there is so much poverty about. There is always a day of reckoning. God watches the deceit and injustice that accompanies so much wealth accumulation. James in the New Testament had some harsh words for the rich of his day; “Now listen you rich people; weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you …” Wealth can so easily destroy real human living for those who indulge in it

Thank God many rich people have taken note of this fact. We’ve always had the super-rich, but we’ve always had many benefactors and philanthropists whose activities have benefited thousands; the Rothschilds, the Carnegies, the Cadburys and latterly Bill Gates, to mention the most obvious. In a world where the richest 1% of adults control 43% of the world’s assets, and the wealthiest 10% control 83% of those assets there is a vast call for a culture of benefactors and philanthropists. The “trickle down effect” of the rich is a very poor excuse for selfish squandering. There are billions in locked up resources that could so beneficially be released, both for giver and receiver.

The Judeo-Christian tradition has the injunction of “giving to the poor” deeply embedded in its foundations. It is a profoundly important foundation for any healthy human society. It has more than a human sanction, it has a divine sanction. It has more than a human blessing, it has a divine blessing. The same tradition has strong warning for those fail to acknowledge that “the love of money is the root of all evil” and who cling avidly to their gains.


Bob

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