Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, they say. But something nearly as strange happened this summer when more than 100 multi-millionaires, including Gary Lineker and Brian Eno, signed an open letter to new PM Andy Burnham, practically begging the government to tax them more.
The missive, co-ordinated by campaign group Patriotic Millionaires UK, said simply: ‘We can afford it.’
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch encouraged Lineker to ‘write a cheque to the Treasury’ if he felt so strongly. One way he could is via the little-known ‘Donations and Bequests Account’, run by the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt (CRND), part of the UK Debt Management Office.
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Anyone can donate by filling out a form. The CRND says cash donations are used to buy gilts for subsequent cancellation, reducing the national debt.
Created by the National Debt Reduction Act 1823, the account feels eccentric in a rather British way. You imagine the money stuffed in the top drawer of an oak desk in some desiccated Whitehall building.
Donations are published annually and for many years were largely negligible. But in 2024–25, the account received £585 million in cash from the National Fund. This fund originated with a £500,000 donation by Barings banker Gaspard Farrer in 1927, intended to help pay off the UK’s national debt following the First World War. Then, debt stood at about £7.7 billion, or 171 per cent of GDP.
[See also: UHNW philanthropy hits $250 billion, as ultra-wealthy fill public funding gaps]
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Today, it is around £3 trillion, or 94 per cent. Farrer donated anonymously and his identity remained secret until it emerged in court papers in 2020.
Much has changed in the century since. But perhaps Patriotic Millionaires UK signals a return to the wealthy using their money for the betterment of the nation. As their letter put it: ‘Our wealth is our country’s secret weapon – let’s get serious about using it.’
In July, Spear’s reported on a British family who moved multiple trusts from Guernsey to the UK for ‘ethical, social and moral reasons’, despite evidence that the trusts could grow to £82 billion by 2134 if they remained offshore.
Farrer – and the Patriotic Millionaires – would surely approve.
