Message discipline works - well done Gary
When you have a clear, consistent message and a powerful messenger, you can shift the political weather.

“I’m back!” says Gary’s Economics – and it’s as if he’s never been away.
At the beginning of the new video on his YouTube channel, Gary Stevenson, the former trader turned inequality campaigner, worries that taking three months off to recharge when everything was ‘blowing up’ around a wealth tax, could have been a bad idea. All that work, all that effort to build a platform and fine tune a message, only for it to dissipate and disappear. But:
I needn’t have been worried, because everything’s gone absolutely mental since I’ve been away on a wealth tax and inequality. Watching BBC News or Sky News, and every single time they talk about the economy, there’s a little thing at the bottom, that’s asking: ‘Should we have a wealth tax?’. And every single time a politician is asked about politics or the economy, they’re asked: ‘Should we have a wealth tax, are you gonna do wealth taxes, why are you not going to tax rich people more?’.
He points to opinion pieces in the Guardian, Lord Kinnock asking for a tax of 2% on wealth over 10 million, and just last week a YouGov poll coming out showing that 75% of the country supports a wealth tax.

Perhaps more importantly for the political weather, while it’s massively supported by Labour and Lib Dem voters, it also has the support of a majority of both Conservative (63%) and Reform (55%) voters.

Only 19% of Reform voters and 14% of Tory voters strongly oppose the idea.
When we say exactly, we mean exactly
At Absurd Intelligence we’re focused on effective and strategic narrative leadership – what works to shift the public conversation about issues that shape our lives. We know that we’re in the midst of a shit-show; we know we can do better. We’re invested in growing the collaborative network aligned around what’s going to work so we can collectively make a better world.
So we’ve paid a lot of attention to Gary’s position, his leadership, and his messaging. Before Gary went away, his last videos were all calling for two things:
- To keep pushing for one policy: a wealth tax of 2% on wealth above £10 million
- Message discipline: to use this exact message
It is these two things together – a simple, clear demand, repeated exactly – that have allowed the policy idea to cut through to the point where it has become a national conversation, and where politicians can’t escape the question.
Widespread takeup
The policy was on the table in this format in October 2024 when a cross-party group of MPs urged the Chancellor Rachel Reeves to put the 2% on 10m wealth tax into her Autumn Budget.
In January this year the Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer continued to push calls for the same wealth tax. What’s interesting is that the Green Party tweaked and updated its manifesto pledge (which had been a 1% tax on wealth over 10 million) to be aligned with the message discipline of a 2% tax. The detail and the discipline matters, if you want cut-through.
In March Diane Abbott was still asking for the exact same policy on LBC. By then the initial group of 12 MPs calling for the policy had grown to around 30. It’s the central plank of the campaign from a group called Patriotic Millionaires too.

The wealth tax was also something that a wide range of NGOs, not always known for effective collaboration, could also easily get behind without falling out in a narcissism of small differences (“We want 1% on 5m! But we want 3% on 12m!”). Back in March, Oxfam’s polling showed similar results to the new YouGov poll for public support – 78%. The NGOs were also following message discipline.
Not a new idea – so why now?
There were unsuccessful proposals in the 1950s for a wealth tax to help rebuild after the Second World War. Labour introduced a wealth tax proposal in its 1974 election manifesto. In an early example of the power of think tanks, they dropped the idea after criticism from the newly formed right-wing Institute of Fiscal Studies (who, 51 years later, are still criticising the idea, perpetuating inequality with technical arguments).
Fast forward to 2020, and the Wealth Tax Commission proposed a one-off wealth tax – similar to one later proposed by Greenpeace – which would raise hundreds of billions. This was in large part a response to Covid (the commission launched in April 2020), but not only. The defenders of concentrated wealth were out early with their attacks: it’s wealth creation, not a new tax, that will best benefit the poorest in society, of course! (Look how that turned out.)
But that is what makes the idea’s current success so valuable to pay attention to. Why now? Inequality is even worse now than them yes. But its success is, we believe, not down to content, but to message, messenger, and message discipline.
Just look at the Wealth Tax Commission in comparison to Gary Stevenson:
- Corporate and slick vs personal and emotional
- A bunch of professionals vs chatty YouTubes from an insider turned outsider
- No clear single line of what the wealth tax is vs 2% of 10m
The messenger matters
Gary is the communicator for our times on wealth and inequality. Having been inside the beast and emerged out the other side, dressed in a hoody and scuffed trainers like an ordinary bloke, speaking with a working-class London accent, and recognising and respecting the 15-year-old in their bedroom who isn’t thinking “that’s not fair” but rather “where’s my share?”. He speaks the language of ordinary people and ordinary lives. He communicates with the authenticity that people are desperate for.
But, as Gary recognised, the idea would only have traction if it wasn’t only him calling for it. And that traction would only grab if there was exact and precise discipline around the message:
A 2% tax on wealth over 10 million.
So he urged others to get behind the campaign, and stay on message. It was easy to say, explain and understand. Not vague, but concrete. As we’ve written elsewhere, this directness in communication style matters.
We know message discipline – not a new idea – works in most fields of life:
- Just Do It
- Does What it Says on the Tin
- Make America Great Again
- Take Back Control
We also know when it fails, campaigns fail. Hillary Clinton’s run for US President had 80 slogans vs. Trump’s one. It also really helps if it works within the wider messaging structure, such as Obama’s ‘Yes we can…[insert aspirational policy here]’.
It’s something Nigel Farage knows too. That’s why ‘Britain Needs Reform’ works so well, and is repeated ad nauseum (literally, nauseum) in their social media, videos, flyers and leaflets.
A change in the conversation
Yesterday I was part of a workshop on visually communicating about Reform and Farage, as ways to cut through in the media and to the public about the reality of what voting for Farage and Reform would mean – essentially, how to show what people would lose: abortion rights, gay marriage rights, loved neighbours, etc.
One of our participants made the very good point that the news presenters never ask Farage the real questions, such as: what are your plans on abortion and what rights are you going to take away from women? Mainly because the presenters don’t have to, or are too scared to.
But Gary’s campaign on inequality has pushed the idea of a wealth tax into the centre of political and economic conversation, and he’s done this with message discipline across a wide coalition. So let’s hope, even Farage – especially Farage – will be asked what he thinks about a wealth tax, considering that the majority of Reform voters (53% – a higher percentage than those that voted for Brexit!) are in support of a tax of 2% on wealth over £10 million.
I wonder what his answer would be? Either way, well done Gary. And all who have aligned and held their discipline.
Tickets for the Convention to end Conventions now live! (kidding, but you know what we mean)
A reminder: the tickets for our Convention on the Fate of Britain are now live! If you’re up for collaborating to change the world, especially grassroots organisers, creative doers, and movement makers, come join 299 others in London on 11th September. There’s pay-what-you-can options. It’s going to be transcendent.
Elsewhere in Absurdity…
A lurgy infected Absurd Towers curtailed the shenanigans and bustle of some of our team this week, as well as saying goodbye (for now) to the amazing calm, common sense, insight, care and vision from Nuala as she goes on maternity leave. We’ll miss you. To drown their sorrows:
- Clare and David went to the Tanqueray Summer Party 2025, the Diageo-sponsored drinks for politicos in Westminster. They rubbed shoulders with Cabinet Ministers (current and former), MPs, Permanent Secretaries, think tankers, and other hangers on. Lots of dark suit jackets, blue shirts and white faces. A reminder that there is nothing more absurd than the status quo, and the belief that, just because we are all used to it, that today’s situation is normal and inevitable;
- Roc injected some climate and nature realism and ambition into Oxford University’s forum on the future of mobility;
- Clive and Daze took part in a strategic design session with the Make Them Pay campaign for their big action on September 20th in London;
- Alex, Clive and Maddy were part of a workshop at our wonderful friend Marcus Lyon’s studio with other designers, artists and campaigners on how to visually communicate around Reform and the far-right.