The idea of the leaders of major nations across the earth coming together to meet and discuss matters of common concern seems to be a vital way of changing the International environment. It is clear that such a change is vital given the state of the current international situation. It is understandable that many people are uncomfortable with the way in which the Davos event operates, but the principle behind it is surely a good one. The real question is how to ensure that those present from both national governments and major businesses are persuaded to focus on the real needs of the majority of the worlds 7m people rather on the interests and passions and priorities of the worlds richest people. This claim set out by Oxfam a few days ago that the worlds richest 1% have been in receipt of 82% of the worlds income in the last year was criticised by two well known think tanks, the Adam Smith Institute and the Institute for Economic Affairs.

Mark Littlewood from the IEA suggested Oxfam was becoming “obsessed with the rich rather than the poor. Higher taxes and redistribution will do nothing to help the poor; wealth is not a fixed pie. Richer people are also highly taxed people – reducing their wealth won’t lead to redistribution, it will destroy it to the benefit of no one”. Sam Dumitriu, head of research at the Adam Smith Institute said the charity’s inequality stats “always paint the wrong picture. In reality, global inequality has fallen massively over the past few decades.”

The IEA as an organisation and Mark Littlewood as an individual are not really credible voices, despite regularly being given a platform by the BBC. In part this is because as a charity, they have expressed strong political points of view even though this is not allowed under charity commission rules, but when challenged they claim these are personal views from Mark Littlewood. Now Mark Littlewood does have some strong views, a few years ago he tweeted this to me personally before blocking me from following him, after I had questioned his views: “oh God. Another smug, whiney, ill informed, statist, “know it all”, pompous, up themselves, utterly pathetic, left wing lunatic. Spare me.” Another reason why IEA are not credible is that that they refuse to disclose who their main funders are. Yet despite this, the ‘personal’ views of Mark Littlewood will be a reflection of many of their funders and these are almost certainly influential people in the UK. The Adam Smith Institute will also be representing other people across society and in their case, their views are widely accepted as having an important voice to be heard and considered.

So just as there is a need for National leaders and large business leaders to focus on the real challenges facing our society, we do need to find some way of bringing together the diammetrically opposing views of agencies such as Oxfam and Adam Smith Institute. There will never be a total convergence, but there needs to be some move away from the extreme disagreements. One of the areas which is easy to resolve is the idea that trickle down economics works. This is at the heart of both the IEA and Adam Smith Institute. It is easy to find justification for trickle down not working, indeed many economic analysts will support the view. If Littlewood and Dumitriu wish to argue for its success, let them find the evidence and if not they need to have such an appalling set of nonsense dismissed and we move on. There are still people who claim the earth is flat. They are entitled to such views, but this should not influence broadcasters such as the BBC.