Jeff J. Mitchell
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Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, is toying with the idea of maximum wage laws to be imposed on the country's highest earners, The Guardian has reported.
Corbyn proposed the idea during an interview today on BBC Radio 4’s Today while discussing how to address the country's significant income inequality. “I would like there to be some kind of high earnings cap, quite honestly,” he said, without revealing what figure the cap would be placed at. "The point I’m trying to make is that we have the worst levels of income disparity of most of the OECD countries... If we want to live in a more egalitarian society, and fund our public services, we cannot go on creating worse levels of inequality.”
While the leader emphasized during the discussion that he was not "announcing a specific policy," members of the Labour Party were split in their opinions of the scheme. Owen Smith, the member of parliament who challenged Corbyn for Labour's leadership over the summer and lost, wants to see "comprehensive and progressive reform of our tax system" instead. However, former Labour MP Denis MacShane spoke favorably of Corbyn's idea, noting that he had first proposed a maximum wage bill over 23 years ago.