PARIS: Best-selling French economist Thomas Piketty said he supported the Labour Party in Britain’s parliamentary elections, claiming the gap between the rich and poor has grown in recent years under the Conservative government.
I think the Labour Party is in a better position than the Conservative Party to promote growth – and equitable growth – with more investment in education and in public services,” Piketty told reporters on Wednesday.
Piketty, whose best-selling book on global inequality “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” has made him one of the most talked-about economists on the planet, also said he feared Prime Minister David Cameron’s Tories would lead Britain out of the European Union.
The Conservative Party’s policies with respect to the European Union strike me as very populist and very dangerous,” Piketty told members of the Anglo-American Press Association in Paris in reference to Cameron’s pledge to hold a referendum on exiting the EU in 2017 should he be re-elected.
Speaking from France I can see that when you don’t manage to solve your domestic social problems it’s always tempting to blame others. So you can blame foreign workers, you can blame Brussels, you can blame Germany, you can blame China, there’s always lots of people to blame for your problems, but that’s not going to solve them,” the star economist added, drawing a parallel between the rise of nationalist, anti-European parties on both sides of the English Channel.
He also said that despite encouraging economic figures coming from Britain, inequality was also on the rise there.
