Operation Hope

As I made my way through the park in the failing light that evening, I could not help wondering how much my life had changed since the day, when on holiday in San Francisco, on a dull drizzly day, while having a coffee at a small café overlooking Treasure island, I bought a lucky dip ticket for the California Power Lottery rollover for $1 and won $2.78 billion. Overnight I became the winner of the largest ever lottery prize in the world joining the “Super rich” club, whose members included Elon Musk, Jeff Bazos, Bill Gates, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. A scary proposition!

As a lifelong believer in social justice, when I returned to the UK I contacted the UK ONS (Office for National Statistics) to ask how many people lived in poverty. I was shocked to learn that more than 1 in 5 people in the UK (22%) were in poverty in 2021/22 – 14.4 million people. This included 8.1 million working-age adults and 4.2 million children. Unbelievable! Conservative spokesmen and women, ever since I had started listening to them when I was a child, had often characterised poor people as lazy, indigent, good-for-nothings who, in Britain, didn’t want to work but to live off state benefits or turn to crime. Often, these critics had upper-class backgrounds, had been well educated, often at public schools and Oxbridge.

I wanted to conduct an experiment to check this out, and now I had the resources to do so. My naive thinking was to do what the Conservative government had been talking about for years but not actually done. Levelling up. So, I contacted HMRC (His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs) to discuss how best to give £250,000 to the poorest 5,000 families in the country and see what difference this made to their lives. You would have thought I’d asked them to give me the country’s nuclear codes.

The civil servants I spoke to were extremely suspicions of me at first and were polite but guarded.

“Why do you want this information?”

“Why on earth do you want to do this?”

“Have you spoken with the Treasury?”

“No one’s ever done this before. There’s no precedent”.

“We can’t provide you with this information because of GDPR”.

“They’ll probably just spend it all on drugs and alcohol”.

After two months of meetings, with increasingly senior civil servants, I felt trapped between “Groundhog Day” and “Yes Minister” in an interminable circle of obfuscation, and filibustering and felt I was drowning in an ocean of weasel words and endless jargon.

When Sir Giles Whyte Fullbottom explained he’d have to ‘take it upstairs’ to the Chancellor’s PPS I’d had enough. I needed to take a different tack. During those three, very unproductive, months the interest, at 5% per annum, on my winnings had increased my wealth by £27.5 million! Lesson one, it’s real easy to get richer when you’re already rich.

At this point the only people who knew about my win were my family, who had been sworn to secrecy with Pinky promises and about 30 civil servants at HMRC who had been sworn to secrecy with NDCs.

My next step changed everything, for ever. I “came out” to the media in the hope of galvanising the government to take action to help me distribute the money to the poorest families living in the UK. Talk about opening the floodgates. It was more like a Tsunami. Within hours hordes of TV crews, reporters and members of the general public were encamped on the street outside my flat. There was traffic chaos. The police turned up to try to keep the road clear, but this resulted in the pavements being totally blocked, stopping residents from getting in and out of their houses. I felt I had unleashed the Hounds of Hell, and it wasn’t long before neighbours started to complain, and scuffles and fights broke out. Used to receiving one or two calls a day my phone began to ring incessantly with endless media request to “do a story”, interview requests, invitations to appear on TV and radio shows, financial advisors specialising in “wealth management” offering to give me advice on “bespoke financial services” including setting up “Hedge funds in favourable (offshore) financial jurisdictions”, tax experts offering their services to improve my “tax efficiency”. It became relentless.

On top of all this I started getting hard luck stories from people asking for help, from cousins I hadn’t spoken with since I was a child, ex-boyfriends asking how I was, friends I’d lost touch with, and students I’d taught over twenty years previously, all suddenly appeared like moths to candle. I switched off my phone.

Realising that this state of affairs could not continue I agreed to appear on “The Piers Morgan Show”. I’m still not sure why I chose him after all I’m not a fan of that arrogant, right-wing, narcissistic knobhead but I needed to calm things down at home. The £50,000 appearance fee I negotiated went to charity in the hope that it would help those less fortunate than myself (and Piers Morgan), which at that point in my life included 99.5% of the entire UK population. Piers, of course, was thrilled to have scooped such a valuable guest, or perhaps I should say ‘asset’, for his show. For me it was 15 minutes of fame (?), but for the Morganmeister it was more ratings, more fame, more success, more adulation, and of course more potential earnings in the future. Just a regular win: win scenario. My only caveat was the show had to be broadcast live. Neither Piers nor his production team were too keen.

“This show is always recorded”.

“What about bloopers?”

“We may need to edit out mistakes”.

“We always record the show”.

I was very clear, No live show, no deal. This was non-negotiable. Piers was the first to speak. “No problemo. We’ll do it live”. I could see the pound signs in his piggy eyes as he spoke. “We’ll make it work. S’all good”.

Getting to the studio on a wet Friday afternoon meant running the gauntlet of the horde of TV crews and reporters hoping to have their bite of the billionaire cherry, but I just kept smiling and saying that they should watch the show and they’d get the story they were looking for. Squeezing through the frenzied mob I finally made it into the lobby where I was greeted by a twenty something woman with blond hair who I recognised from the production team meeting.

“Hi, I’m Cherri, with an i, Wellesly-Pratchett, Piers’ PA. Let’s get you into makeup, then a super quick screen test and then we’ll meet up with Piers. I’d arrived in TV land! Makeup was a bit of a misnomer as in a small, rather dingy, room Cherri with an i introduced me to a rather tired looking middle-aged woman called Jan.

“Sit yourself down dear. This won’t take long.”

Jan then proceeded to use a large brush to apply powder all over my face and forehead dabbing it down with a powder puff that looked like it had seen better days. “This will help to matte your skin to prevent you from glowing on camera.”

“OK. Thanks Jan, we just need to pop into the studio for a super quick camera check and we’re good to go. This way, follow me”.

The studio was smaller than I had envisaged. At the back was a large, back-lit, “The Piers Morgan Show” sign in a gaudy gilt frame, possibly a reference to Piers’ love of the Royal family? There were two chairs in front and three cameras on castors pointed towards the set so whichever one was broadcasting showed the large purple “The Piers Morgan Show” sign in all its gilded narcissistic glory. Behind the cameras were about twenty rows of banked seating for the live audience.

“Grab that seat and let’s get you tested. Ron sweetie, can you do the honours?”

From behind camera three a balding middle-aged man began pushing his camera toward me and then pulling it back and looking at the small screen at the back of the camera and fiddling with some of the controls.

“Everything OK Ron darling?” Ron shook his head.

“Give me a minute I just need to sort this out”. With that Cherri, clipboard in hand, marched over to camera three. Ron started pointing in a somewhat agitated manner at the small screen, shaking his head and speaking in hushed tones. Cherri listened, spoke, there was more head shaking from Ron and more clipboard grasping from Cherri.

“Soz for the delay but your shirt is causing problems for the camera. Do you have another one by any chance?”

I’d selected my outfit carefully and chosen a beautiful deep navy 100% cotton shirt with large flying white storks with crimson highlights which I’d bought from TK Maxx about a year previously and which I really enjoyed wearing. After explaining to Cherri with an i that I hadn’t actually brought a spare shirt she grabbed her clipboard and asked me to follow her to ‘wardrobe’. My first appearance on national TV was turning into a scavenger hunt.

‘Wardrobe’ turned out to be a much larger, and significantly dingier, room lit with neon strip lighting filled with rows of garments, smelling like a giant charity shop.

“Madge darling, are you here? Madge! Madge sweetie. It’s urgent honey”. Cherri’s voice became increasingly strident with each ‘Madge’, as if calling out for an errant pet. Just then there came a shuffling sound from the back of the room and an elderly, rotund, lady slowly emerged from behind a row of what looked like Bolero dresses, dressed in a black and white woollen one piece outfit, looking like a giant Orca coming up for air. As she pushed her way upwards beneath a huge sign with red capital letter reading “Smoking absolutely forbidden”, I could see her fanning what looked and smelt like cigarette smoke.

“Hullo dearie, what can I do you for?”

“Madge, it’s a bit of an emergency love”.

“It’s always an emergency with you lot. Never fear Madge is here.”

“This gentleman is on Piers’ show tonight and Ron’s just done the screen test and unfortunately the flare from his shirt is off the chart”.

“T’aint no surprise to me, with all that’s going on in that shirt it looks like a fox got into the henhouse!”

“Madge sweetness, can you find something? We’re due to go live in 30”.

“Live! You must be an important fellah. Nay worries, they don’t call me ‘Wonder woman’ for nothing. What collar size are you sweetheart?”

Armed with the sizing information ‘Wonder woman’ plunged back into the rainbow sea of clothes. Darting from rack to rack like a hungry, very large, otter chasing fish, in less than a minute she re-emerged clutching three plain shirts, two white and one dark blue.

“Try these on good sir and when you’re finished just leave your shirt and the ones you don’t want, and I’ll sort them out.”

Wearing my new, glare free, blue shirt and having had a rather peremptory ‘pre-show briefing’ I was escorted by Cherri, with an i, back into the studio where the show’s audience was being briefed by the Floor Manager. As Cherri ushered me to my seat a disembodied voice barked out of the darkness “Live in five, Tarquin can you mic Chris up”. At this point a good-looking young guy, with a very distinct home counties accent, fine facial features and floppy dark hair attached a microphone to my plain blue shirt.

“Mic check Hal. Can you say a few words so we can check the levels”.

“One two button my shoe, three four …!”

“All good. We’re good to go. Thanks Tarq.”

At this point Piers walked briskly onto set, already mic’d up I noticed, welcomed me and started looking at his notes.

“All good?”

Before I could answer he explained they’d count us in, play the intro music and then it’s all systems go”.

“Everything OK?”

I was just about to answer when a voice, which sounded like Hal’s barked out.

“Enjoy everyone, let’s make it a good one!”

At this point Tarquin called out “Five, four …” folding his fingers down as he counted and at three, he went quiet but continued to fold his remaining three digits. As his hand morphed into a fist the music started and the audience went silent.

We were live!

“Good evening and welcome to “The Piers Morgan show””.

I looked up at the gaudy purple sign and wondered if I’d made the right decision. Either way, it was too late now.

“On tonight’s show I’m delighted to welcome Chris Grant who, while he was on holiday in the US, bought a ticket for the California Power lottery and won the largest ever jackpot prize.”

“Did you have any lucky numbers Chris?”

“I bought a lucky dip ticket, so I guess they were all lucky Piers”.

“How much was the ticket, and how much did you win?”

“The ticket cost me $1, and I won $2.78 billion.”

There was an audible gasp from the audience with a couple of people clapping.

“And how much is that in sterling?”

“About £2.2 billion”.

“I understand this is the largest ever lottery payout anywhere in the world?”

“Speaking with the guys from the Guiness Book of World records I believe it is”.

“How do you feel?”

“Extremely rich!” There were more, muted, gasps from the studio audience. “But also shocked, surprised, elated and frustrated”.

“Frustrated? You’ve just copped over 2 million quid how can you be frustrated?”

“It was two billion Piers. I’m now a fully paid-up member of the 1% club, like yourself”.

“Yes, sorry, what’s a few million between friends? What exactly is the 1% club?”

“The Swiss bank UBS publishes an annual Global Wealth report, which in 2023 showed the distribution of the world’s wealth in a four-tier pyramid. Each tier represents the amount of wealth held by wealthy people. The lowest tier is people with less than $10,000 worth of wealth and is 52% of the world’s population, who own 1.2% of global wealth. The top tier of the pyramid is much, much, smaller and shows those with wealth in excess of $1 million which is 1.1% of the population, who own 45.8% of the world’s wealth.”

I could see Piers beginning to fluster as his eyes scanned his notes. An audience member shouted out “Shame on them”.

“This is the 1% per cent club, of which both you and I are members.”

“But there have always been richer and poorer people throughout history so what’s new?”

“Indeed, but what’s new, and very worrying, is the amount of wealth and its concentration in the hands of a tiny number of incredibly wealthy families. If you combine the top two tiers of the pyramid just 13.1% own 85.2% of the world’s wealth.”

Boos and jeers from the studio audience.

“And what this means is that the rest of the people, who own wealth, which is 86.9% of people in the world, all with less than $100,000 of wealth, together, own 14.8% of global wealth.”

More cries of ‘shame’, ‘bastards’, ‘spread the wealth’, and ‘it’s not right’ from the studio audience.

“So, now you’re one of these ‘High Net Wealth individuals’ in the top tier?”

“No. I need to correct you, Piers. You are a ‘High Net Wealth individual’; I am, what the bankers call, an ‘Ultra High Net Worth individual’. According to UBS there are just 243,000 of us worth more than $50 million.”

I watched Piers’ face drop as he digested the news that although he was in the 1% club he still had a long way to reach the top table.

“So now you’ve joined this elite group what are your plans? Ferrari? Yacht? Private jet?”

“As a middle-class professional, I’ve been in the bottom layer of tier two for the past twenty years. I used to be part of the “comfortable middle class” able to afford food, energy, run a car, pay my mortgage and take holidays. If I needed health care, it was relatively easy to access. Streets where I have lived were relatively clean and the roads free of potholes. Over the past twenty years I have seen all this deteriorate and yet the world has become wealthier. Before I won the lottery I had become what middle class people jokingly, and (for them) worryingly, call the “poor middle class”. Before millions of people shout out “poor you”, and more importantly for the future of this country, I can see the devastating effect this is having on the millions of people who are much worse off than me.”

“But there is a context for Britain’s decline. Brexit, Covid, the war in Ukraine have all taken their toll.”

“Agreed, but Covid and the war in Ukraine also affect other countries than Britain. Brexit took place in 2020. In 2022 the UK was the sixth richest country in the world! With over 185 countries in the world that’s pretty good going.”

“Who says Britain was the sixth wealthiest country?”

“It is The World Bank, which publishes financial data on most major countries in the world”.

“So what point are you making?”

“Piers, do you know what the average gross wage in 2022 was for the top 50% of wage earners in the UK?”

“Not off the top of my head, but I’ve got a feeling you’re going to tell me”.

“According to the ONS, the UK Office for National Statistics, it was £26,430 which nets down to £22,272 after tax and NICs. This figure takes all the wages of the top 50% of earners and divides it by the total number”.

“What’s your point?”

“If that’s the average for the top 50%, what does it say about the wages of the bottom 50%?”

More cheering and clapping from the audience, plus one old lady shouting “go Chris, you tell that smug bastard”. At this stage I could see Piers was beginning to regret his impromptu decision to broadcast live.

“My point is that there is a substantial number of people in the sixth wealthiest country in the world who are now defined as living in poverty. What is going on? Public services are services available to all of us (even if we choose or can afford not to use them). Public services enable poorer people to have the same access to healthcare, dentistry, the justice system, education, roads, public spaces as richer people but to them they are far more important as they allow them to lead what I referred to earlier, as more “comfortable” lives. Since the Tories started selling off public services have they improved? Have they got less expensive? Trains, electricity, water?”

“So, you’re a Socialist? And a very wealthy one at that!”

“Why, why, why do people on the right think that wanting better public services automatically makes you a Socialist? That is such binary thinking. I would have expected better from such a well-educated man as yourself.”

“If my analysis is so binary perhaps you could elucidate what it is you want?”

“OK, I’ll do my best. Capitalism is an economic system where capital is used to invest in companies which make stuff or provide services. Capitalists believe in the power of ‘markets’. They give examples of companies which have failed or been taken over because they cannot compete with more efficient companies. As a result, these better run, more efficient companies grow while poorly run and less efficient companies go to the wall.”

“Exactly! And this is the beauty of capitalism, the survival of the fittest.”

“This lemming-like belief in the power of markets overlooks one enormous issue. Businesses exist to turn capital into profit and then to use these profits to re-invest in the company to make it more efficient, develop new products and promote and sell its existing and new products (or services) even more effectively. But they also want to increase the value of the company by increasing the share price to reward the investors who bought shares. They also reward these investors with dividends. Since I won the £2.2 billion a year ago, I have had it invested in a savings account which pays 5% interest. Over 12 months this interest amounts to £110 million”.

Deep gasps from many members of the audience.

“I’ve done nothing, but my capital has earned me £110 million! BUT, in order to get capital working for you, rather than you actually having to work, you need capital in the first place, which takes me back to the top two tiers of the pyramid. A few years ago, my brother was talking to me about his share portfolio and suggested I should start investing in the stock market. Sure, I could have forgone holidays and cut back on other spending and say I had invested £2,000 in shares and that these shares had risen by 11% over the year my capital would have made me £220. Great, but not enough to give up my day job!

If a business exists to service its own interests what is to stop them behaving illegally? Do you remember the Volkswagen diesel scandal a few years ago when VW sold diesel cars whose emission levels had been doctored? Sure, it was discovered by an intrepid investigative journalist, and they were taken to court and found guilty. Sure, they were fined. But most amazingly we found out that the whole thing had been masterminded as a “piece of business”. The VW board had discussed the implications of being found out, calculated the likely financial penalty from a court case, and made the ‘business decision’ that the additional money they made from selling more diesel cars would more than cover the cost of the fine. Incredible! From a capitalist perspective it was a beautiful piece of business. From any other angle it was malfeasance. How many bankers went to prison after the Global Financial crash in 2008? What was the impact on the Postmasters caught up in the recent Post Office scandal? Have any of the Post Office or Fujitsu executives gone to prison? Why do water companies continue to pump raw sewerage into rivers and the sea? Have any of the senior execs gone to prison? How do airlines get away with not offsetting the carbon dioxide their aircraft pump out of their engines day after day?”

“Wow! This is heavy stuff. I can see you are passionate about all this but what is your solution?”

“When I was a teacher, the university I was working for decided to revalidate all its degree courses. This meant looking at every single course, what was covered in the curriculum, the assessments and how it would be taught. At one of our faculty meetings, we were discussing the Business courses and I asked if there would be a module (15 weeks studying a given subject) on ethics and morality in business. After all there were modules on setting up a business, tax, accounting, sales and marketing, international business, human resources, profit and loss, mergers & acquisitions and branding. You could have heard a pin drop. Then one of the business teachers piped up, ‘I do one session on ethical business in week 14’. One week out of a three-year degree course! No wonder we’re getting into such a muddle with business, which people believe is entitled to do, almost, anything if it helps to improve the business. Drug dealers kill their competitors to protect or build their businesses. VW doctored the emissions from their cars. Is this acceptable, if it improves your business?”

“So, what’s the answer?”

“More binary thinking Piers. There is no single answer, but one way would be to manage business more effectively through regulation but looking at the powerlessness of the regulators across the world, underfunded and paying their staff less than they could earn in businesses, it doesn’t look like it’s working. One suggestion I would make would be to change the law so that business owners and managers, when found guilty of breaking the law, became personally responsible. Just fining the company doesn’t, as we saw with VW, work. We need to send the directors to prison more often (if found guilty) and for longer. We need to increase the risk for the individuals making these decisions. If it had been down to me, I would have sent the entire VW board to jail for ten years.”

Much cheering and clapping from the audience.

“What we have is ‘untrammeled capitalism’, aiming to make money at almost any cost. What we need is ‘contained capitalism’ where government regulators have the power to control it, but to do this they need laws (with strong penalties), the experts and the know-how. Regulators need to be properly resourced and become a true arm of states like armies, or the justice system. Without this, how on earth can we hope to control business decisions which are excellent for companies, well done VW, but which pollute or destroy the environment we all need to survive and take advantage of individual consumers, or avoid them paying their fair share of tax in the country where their goods or services are actually sold?”

“OK so I get that you feel strongly about all this but what exactly are you proposing to do?”

“In this country in 2021/22, 20% of the population was classified as living in poverty. Given that in 2022 the UK was the sixth wealthiest country in the world I find this statistic extremely concerning. So, I am planning to conduct an experiment in which I’ll give £250,000 to the poorest 5,000 families in the country to see what difference it might make over a five-year period to do some real ‘levelling-up’. I’m calling it Operation Hope.”

“A quarter of a million? You might as well flush it down the toilet!”

“Let’s see. As part of the experiment, I’ll be working with researchers who’ll monitor the families and at the end of the five years, as an added incentive, the family that has made the most of this money will win a prize of £1 million.”

“So let me get this right. Each family will get a quarter of a million pounds and five years later the one which has made the most money will get a million quid?”

“They’ll get £50,000 each year for five years and each year they’ll be contacted to find out how they’re getting on. It’s not just about how much money they’ve made, as one of them might win the lottery, but about how much of a difference this money makes for them.”

“So, they could just spend the money on holidays, cars, electronics or booze and drugs?”

“Yep. If that’s what they want, it’ll be their money to do what they like with it.”

“And what do you hope to achieve with your grandiose experiment?”

“I hope to show that poor people are just like you and I Piers, that they have hopes and dreams and aspirations. The main difference is that for reasons beyond their control, they don’t have any wealth.”

“Good luck with that, I think you’re going to be bitterly disappointed”.

“Maybe so, but at least I’ll have tried, and these 5,000 families will have been given a real opportunity to change their lives. But I need your help.”

“If it’s my money your after you’re on your own with this one. Personally, I think you’re crazy and will just be wasting your money.”

“Calm yourself Piers, I’m not asking you for money, but I do need your help to find these 5,000 families”.

“I’m not sure I can help with that”.

“Not personally, but I’m hoping that this programme might help me to get through to the government what I’m planning to do and to get help from HMRC to identify these people and provide their contact details so we can start the experiment”.

“Well good luck with that! An interesting, but futile idea. Chris Grant, thanks so much for coming on my show this evening, good luck with your experiment and maybe you could come back on my show in five years and tell us how it went”.

“If your show is still on in five years, it would be my pleasure Piers”.

The lights on the cameras went out and the show’s outro music started playing.

“Are you fucking nuts Chris. You know they’ll all just piss it up the wall and in five years you’ll have given away millions of quid for nothing.”

“I’ll have given away £1.25 billion. Let’s wait and see if it’s for nothing. Thanks for having me on your show, let’s hope it puts a bomb under HMRC so we can get my show, Operation Hope, on the road”.

With that I started to get up, when Tarquin re-emerged and removed my mic. “Nice one Chris, good luck I hope it works”.

Cherri bounded over, “Let’s get you back to Madge so you can pick up your shirt”.

Madge, the magician, had washed, ironed and folded my TK Maxx shirt and when I collected it from her gave me a wink and said, “That was amazing love, good on you, God bless”.

So far, so good. Leaving the TV studio the crowd of reporters seemed to have got even bigger.

“How are to going to choose the families?”

“Do you think your experiment will work?”

“How does it feel being the new Father Christmas?”

I pushed my way through the madding crowd and jumped in a taxi. It was over. Phase two of Operation Hope was complete.

When I got home the press were still encamped outside my flat so rather than force my way through them, I stopped and with cameras and mics staring me in the face said I’d like to make a statement.

“By now you’ll know I launched my five-year experiment, Operation Hope, today with the help of that well known philanthropist, Piers Morgan”, there was a burst of laughter from the crowd. “In the hope that the publicity it generates will prompt the government into helping me identify and make contact with the 5,000 poorest families in the country to invite them to take part. I have spent two months in discussions with HMRC myself and got absolutely nowhere so if you think this is a worthwhile venture I’d like to ask for your help. Sometimes the civil service needs an incentive. I tried to use the carrot of giving these families £250,000 over five years which will net the government around £37,430,000 in income tax and quite a boost in VAT I imagine, but I failed to get their help. So now is the time to use the stick. If you feel this project is worthwhile, I would like to ask you to write or email the Prime Minister with your support and to urge the government to find a way to enlist HMRC’s help in finding these people and making the arrangements to give them their £50,000 each year, for five years, if they agree to take part. Only when this is done will I be able to start Operation Hope. Thank you”.

With that I hustled my way indoors, switched on the lights, made myself a cup of tea and sat down, looking at my neatly pressed shirt with the storks flying upwards, hopefully, towards a better future. But only time would tell.

The papers the next day were no real surprise.

The Sun – “Father CHRIStmas’ billion-pound present”

The Daily Mail – “Operation HOPEless”

The Guardian – “Bold social experiment launched on “The Piers Morgan Show”.

Socialist Worker – Chris Grant launches Operation Hope – Levelling up or legerdemain?”

I dared not switch my phone back on, so went into town and bought myself a new ‘work’ phone so I could start on phase three.

Waiting to see if public reaction would help to speed things up at HMRC I contacted the CAGE Research Centre at the University of Warwick to find out if they’d be interested to join the programme. The response I got was incredible. I knew they’d published some research in 2020/21 into wealth inequality in the UK and they were more than keen to get involved and suggested a meeting.

Meeting the research team in Warwick was a refreshing change from the countless meetings I’d had with officials at HMRC. They were very enthusiastic to take the lead in researching outcomes from Operation Hope and came up with some great suggestions. In order to capture the data we needed we would need the contact details of the 5,000 selected families. In order to take part, they would need to sign a contract committing them to completing the annual survey. If they failed to do so their next tranche of £50,000 would be stopped. They could also volunteer to be filmed on a quarterly basis if they felt this was something they’d like to do. Each year CAGE would provide a report on the progress of the families that would be published on the Operation Hope website using aggregated data. At the end of the five years a panel made up of CAGE members, social workers, journalists, and laypeople, but not including me, would meet to decide which family won the £1m incentive prize. In order to receive the prize this family would need to agree to have one interview for broadcast, and any other interviews they chose to do would be down to them. The stage was set, now we waited to see if the government would play its part in launching Operation Hope.

I didn’t have to wait long. Using “The Piers Morgan Show” and the resultant publicity surrounding my appearance, and my plea to the general public to cajole the government into action, could not have worked better. Following my impromptu press interview on returning to my flat the story had gone mega-viral, and the Prime Minister had received over one million letters and emails asking for his help to get HMRC onboard in just 48 hours! Just five days later I heard my doorbell chime and on the doorstep was Sir Giles Whyte Fullbottom accompanied by a slightly older looking Tarquin lookalike.

“Chris, lovely to see you again, may we come in?”

“Sir Giles, hi, certainly, do come in. Tea?”

“That would be most welcome. I trust you are keeping well”.

Three tea bags later I sat down with the HMRC posse.

“Chris, I’ve been in touch with Douggie, the Chancellor’s PPS, and we’d be delighted to help with Operation Hope. The PM thinks it’s a fantastic initiative and you have his full support. We’ve been looking around for ways we can help and have identified 2.8 million families who meet your criteria.”

It was akin to the scene in the Disney ‘Jungle Book’ film when the giant snake Ka is trying to hypnotise Mowgli prior to eating him or an episode of “Yes Minister” when Sir Humphrey gives an intractable solution to the Minister knowing he has done his job, but at the same time just passing the buck.

“That’s great news” I said thinking how to resolve this dilemma. “Can you contact these people?”

“We can write to them, but the postage would be expensive”.

Feeling myself backed into a corner but not wanting to lose the initiative I decided to call his bluff.

“If the postage was paid, could you write to them inviting them to our website to register for a lottery with a chance to become one of the 5,000 families eligible to take part in Operation Hope?”

“We’d need to check into that, it’s never been done before.”

I suddenly had a massive feeling of déjà vu.

“I’d be grateful if you could make a few calls ‘cos I’d really like to let the media know that you’re onside”.

“Surely, I’ll do that and get back to you as soon as.”

“Sir Giles, I’d really like to make that announcement with you today, before you leave”.

Sir Giles Whyte Fullbottom look flustered and turned to his colleague. “Pennington, could you call Douggie to see if this might be possible”.

Pennington pulled out his phone and pressed two keys, I assume ‘Douggie’ was on speed dial, and I offered to make us all another cup of tea. In the kitchen I could hear one or two yeses and nos from Pennington but mainly silence as Douggie considered the proposition. On walking back into the lounge, I heard Pennington say “Thank you Sir Douglas I’ll let him know”.

Sir Gyles looked at Pennington “Well, what does Douggie say?”

“He says we’re good to go and that the money should be transferred into the 0057 account”.

God only knows what the 0057 account was, but we had a deal.

After the announcement that the government was going to write to all the families eligible to join Operation Hope and offer them the opportunity to take part in a lottery to win one of the 5,000 places on the scheme, I went back inside to call Warwick to ask them to set up the lottery on the Operation Hope website. We would shortly have 5,000 families, together with their contact details and NI numbers. Phase three was good to go.

I couldn’t believe the interest shown in the press and on social media in Operation Hope over the next few days and weeks. I continued to receive callers asking for interviews and appearances, not just from the UK media but increasingly from media outlets from all over the world. NBC, ABC, Fox News, Al Jazeera, RTE, Le Monde, Die Welt, and many others I never heard of. It was crazy town.

I appointed a secretary to handle all of this, gave him my phone and switched it back on. If anyone earned their salary in the next few months it was Jon, my new secretary, an ex-boyfriend with a Brummie accent.

The letters from HMRC went out on the 1^st of March and recipients were given until 31^st March to enter the lottery. The website crashed on the 4^th of March but the team in Warwick got it up and running in six hours and we were back in business. By the morning of the 30^st we had received 2.73 million applications to take part. These guys certainly weren’t too lazy to win the opportunity to earn £250,000 with odds that made the National Lottery look like theft.

I was due to drive up to Warwick the next day to do a press conference announcing the results of the lottery draw when Jon, who was on the phone at the time, called me over.

“It’s the Prime Minister’s office. They want to know if it would be OK for the PM to attend the draw tomorrow?”

“Yes, of course, tell them the draw takes place when the computer selects the 5,000 winners at midnight and I look forward to meeting him”.

Jon relayed the message and then said, “they want to know if we could do the draw at six?”

“No, ‘snot possible, the program automatically selects 5,000 random winners immediately the draw closes at midnight.”

Jon went back on the phone. After two or three minutes he held up his thumb. “OK, they’re good to go!”

Just as he ended the PM call the phone rang again, it was Cherri with an i. “Hi Chris, we were wondering if it would be OK to join you for the lucky draw tomorrow? Piers is all in on giving his support to Operation Hope and would be delighted to say a few words”.

It looked like the Hope experiment was gaining some serious traction.

“Sure, we’d be delighted to see him in Warwick at midnight tomorrow”.

“She’s asking if it could be rescheduled for Tuesday as he’s flying to New York on 1^st April?”

“Tell her it’s not possible, but that the Prime Minister will be disappointed he couldn’t make it.”

“It’s all good, Piers will reschedule New York and looks forward to seeing you at midnight tomorrow.” Jon ended the call.

“What a total fuckwit!”.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The campus at Warwick university, normally empty apart from the cleaners and security staff, was buzzing. Filled with what looked like most of the students at the university and many of the staff, the building was packed. Police were everywhere and when I got into the room where the draw was to take place the research team had set up a couple of computers and a large screen.

“We’re linked up to the uni servers for speed so we should be able to announce the results in about seven minutes after the draw closes” a thirty something techie announced.

The press were corralled behind barriers at the front of the room so they could film the proceedings and the Prime Minister, who arrived surrounded by serious looking aides and a gaggle of plain clothed police officers, for the next five minutes worked the assembled hacks like a pro.

“Absolutely delighted to give my support to one of the most exciting and inspirational initiatives I have seen the whole time I have been in government.”

“Helping the poorest people in this country has always been top of my agenda”.

“I’m looking forward to watching Operation Hope unfold and seeing the results”.

“Yes, I am so impressed with Chris Grant’s altruism he’s an example to all of us”.

“The government is always keen to support the poorest members of our society”.

This barrage of positive sentiment and quotable quotes seemed never ending and completely overshadowed Piers Morgan’s arrival but not to be outdone Piers came over to me and shook my hand.

“Great to see you Chris. Who’d have thought? I can’t believe the interest we’ve got in Operation Hope. And all from just one episode of my show! I’ll just say a few words.”

Before Piers could say anything else Dr Rauff Nada the Head of Research at CERC grabbed the mic. “Prime Minister, Chris Grant, ladies and gentlemen the time is 15 seconds to midnight. Can I ask you to join me in a countdown from ten… ten, nine,”

Piers, looking totally pissed off, turned up his smile, and looking towards the assembled cameras joined in “five, four, three, two one!”

Everyone was clapping and cheering as the giant screen showed the lottery clock reach 00:00 and a “Processing results” message appeared.

The Prime Minister turned to me and asked “How long will this bit take?”

“I’ve been told it should be ready in seven minutes Prime Minister”.

“Ah! I’ve got a breakfast meeting at Chequers with President Zilinsky, so I’d better be off. Well done for all the good work you’re doing. You’re an inspiration to all of us. Good luck.”

With that he turned, and he and his entourage quickly exited the building.

Jon turned to me and in his indomitable Brummie style said “For fucks sake. I suppose now he’s got his pics and his quotes out it’s time for bed!”

Piers, however, wasn’t going to lose this opportunity. Pushing forward towards the press pack, smiling like a giant six-month-old toddler, he held up his hands. “I got to know Chris Grant when he came on my show a few months ago after winning £2.2 billion in the largest ever lottery win to reveal what he intended to do with his prize. I have to say at the time I was a little skeptical of his idea but seeing all that he and his team from Warwick University have done, has moved me. It’s made me re-think income inequality in this country. As a result, I would like to announce I am going to make a contribution of £10,000 to Operation Hope”.

With that Cherri with an i turned around a large rectangular card resting against her legs and with Piers holding one end and Cherri, with an i, holding the other, showed off a giant cheque made out to Operation Hope for £10,000. For a split second there was total silence, until one of the students shouted out “cheapskate” which, in turn, led to a chorus of even more hard-hitting (and accurate) remarks.

Piers’ face, frozen in his middle-aged toddler’s face, slowly began to connect with his Morganmeister brain, which had jumped into overdrive. Realising he’d made a massive PR fuck up he went into ‘Piers recovery mode.’ Throwing the cheque onto the floor he turned to Cherri and said “For God’s sake, I said £100,000. Can’t you get anything right”. Then turning back to the cameras “You just can’t get the staff anymore”.

Cherri burst into tears and turned to Piers “You arrogant, selfish, lying pig. You said ‘£10K would be enough to make you look good’”. Immediately booing and jeering broke out all over the room.

“Fuck off you total piece of shit”

“The truth will out”

“Lying bastard”

“Cunt”

“Apology for a human being”

The room was turning nasty, and the remaining local police and campus security formed a cordon around the Morganmeister and escorted him out of the room running a barrage of expletives and insults all the way to his Jaguar parked outside the door.

At about this point the screen changed and a giant “Completed” message came up amid cheers and whoops of “Go Operation Hope”, “Hope it works”, “Good luck” and “Lifechanging”. As the chants died down I was picked up and put on the shoulders of two giant, what looked like, rugby players, and paraded round the room as the crowd began to sing “For he’s a jolly good fellow”. Up to this point in my “experiment” I have to say I’d felt pretty calm (despite the massive press interest). Moving around the room with all the singing and cheering, like Cherri with an i, I also burst into tears feeling there was now hope that Operation Hope would bring real change, not just to the 5,000 families but also to the way people began to think about the damage done, in the sixth richest country in the world, with such enormous income inequality.

When the guys put me down, I found Cherri dabbing her face, looking more like a sad clown where her mascara had run, “That fat bastard’s sacked me! I can’t believe it after all I’ve done for that jumped-up public-school twat. Hey, that shirt looks great on you.”

“Don’t you recognise it? Spot the storks which are right off the chart”.

Cherri burst out laughing and gave me a hug. “I’m so glad to have met you Chris, go storks!”

After the dramatic launch event everything went into overdrive. The research team contacted the winners and sent them their contracts. When they returned them, we sent the names and NI numbers to HMRC who distributed the first tranche of their first year’s £50,000, £3,333 per month after tax. The 5,000 lucky winners were no longer the poorest people in the UK, the experiment was live. Now all we could do was wait.

Many of the winners contacted their local media and for a few weeks enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame. I had assumed that we’d get a mixed bag of results and as the monthly reports came in could see I’d been spot on. Some of the families rushed out to buy stuff (mainly flat screen TVs and computer games), while others bought cars and motorbikes. Some went on holidays and some spent large amounts on food and alcohol. But overall, they seemed to be managing their income. As they bought computers and went online, we were able to communicate via e-mail which saved a substantial amount on postage.

At the end of year one I went up to Warwick to meet with the research team. Two of the families had been killed in vehicle accidents but the remaining 4,998 had all fulfilled their obligation to complete their questionnaires in order to receive the next year’s tranche of £50,000 and, I assume, to be in with a chance of winning the £1m jackpot prize at the end of the five years. The results made for really interesting reading. Many of the families had set up standing orders to pay-off debt (mainly extortionate credit card and loan interest). The spending on larger items such as cars and flat screen TVs had tailed off and direct debits set up for utility bills. A, relatively, small minority it was clear were spending all their “wages” every month and not saving anything, but a sizeable minority had set up savings accounts. A few had purchased premium bonds, and some had taken out loans which they were now struggling to pay off even with their monthly net income of £3,333. One family had bought £1,000 worth of scratch cards and won £5,000 while another had spent £2,000 on lottery tickets and won £654! Most reported they no longer worried about their energy bills or the cost of their food shopping and really enjoyed treating their kids to nice clothes, days-out and holidays. Quite a few had gone back to college to obtain vocational qualifications (building; carpentry; plumbing; electrics and IT mainly but also hairdressing, beauty, floristry and bookkeeping).

About 50 had volunteered to have a camera crew visit each quarter to record their progress and had become ‘mini-celebs’ in their local area. Of the 4,998 families only five had had run-ins with the police. Two for speeding and three for assault. So far so good.

I’d spent much of the year doing interviews on both UK and international TV, Radio and internet where the most often asked question was ‘why did I do what I did when I could have kept the money to spend on myself?’ Interestingly most of the Muslim shows I went on didn’t ask this question but did probe me as to whether I was a religious person.

Sitting at home Jon turned to me and asked, “So what are you hoping for?”

“That’s the $64 million question mate.”

“More like the £1.25 billion question”.

“Yeah, you’re right. Whenever I’ve travelled abroad (Brazil, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the US) I’ve always been shocked to see the massive disparity in wealth between the rich and poor. On his show I remember Piers saying there has always been richer and poorer people but the thing that really shocked me was the World Bank economic data saying that the UK was the sixth wealthiest country in the world in 2022. If this is true than how come this country is becoming more like a less developed country with a tiny number of incredibly wealth peeps and an increasing number of poor people. We’ve got one fifth of this country living in poverty. That can’t be right. Wealthy politicians pontificate on why this is and have always got reasons not only why this is the case, but also how we can’t afford to support these people properly and continue to reduce the amount of money going to public services. This country, it seems to me, is going to hell in a handcart while the sales of super cars, yachts and private jets are at an all-time high! I needed to do something to reignite public indignation and get people thinking about more than Emmerdale and Love Island”.

“And is Operation Hope the answer?”

“I haven’t a clue.”

“So, you did it on a wing and a prayer?”

“Yes and no. Yes, because I haven’t got a scooby whether it will work or have any lasting impact and no because one of the other things I discovered travelling around the world, visiting the countries I’ve been to, is in the innate goodness of people. Sure, there are bullies and greedy bastards, hey you’ve met Piers, but the majority of people I met were sound. I believe the majority of people in this country are sound, but that we’ve been, and are being, hi-jacked by an economic system designed to benefit an increasingly small number of extremely wealthy people whose agenda is mostly to look after number one. When I won the £2 bill’ most of the journalists who I’ve spoken to me can’t believe I wouldn’t just live it up and look after myself. They assume I would behave in the same way that they might have behaved if they’d won the money. This is deeply worrying to me. We seem to be moving in the “River Capitalism” being swept inexorably towards a bad future. People without the wherewithal to keep afloat are left to drown while the 1% buy bigger and bigger boats for themselves and their families and enjoy lavish lifestyles as they sail down the river letting their money work for them”.

“You’ve just described Capitalism 101. Do you think Operation Hope stands a snowball’s chance in Hell of changing anything?”

“No idea. But d’ya know I’m beginning to feel that something has changed”.

“Yeah 5,000 families will have better lives for five years.”

“No. Not just them. Something else has changed. People have begun to ask questions. Remember Piers’ £10K cheque?”

“Totally fucking unbelievable!”

“Yeah. But for me I think that was a turning point. Piers’ monumental miscalculation and his sacking of Cherri on camera was, I believe, a pivotal moment. Everyone could see he was just trying to buy more publicity on the cheap, but it backfired. Piers represents everything that’s wrong with this country today. Wealthy, self-serving, double-dealing, arrogant, compassionless.”

“Dickwad”.

“Yep, that too. But the timing was just right. At that time, and in that place, that cheque was priceless. When he offered to increase it to £100 grand it just made everything come into focus. When he blamed Cherri on live TV the damage was done, and when he sacked her the die was cast. I think we’re going to see a combination of Operation Hope and Piers’ Morgan selfish behaviour change this country”.

“Let’s hope so.”

Eighteen months after the launch of Operation Hope the General Election took place. The Tories, who had been in power for fourteen years, were wiped out. The “New Tories” who called themselves “Reform” (and who others called “Right wing Tories”) also failed to get a single MP elected. The Labour party came to power with the largest ever majority the country had ever seen. Despite having promised not to introduce a Wealth tax they commissioned research into how best to introduce a “Levelling Up tax” to be levied on everyone in the UK with over £50m worth of wealth, which now included me. Despite substantial opposition from the House of Lords they passed the Bill and were able to re-introduce their “Green incentive”, of £28bn a year for five years promoting investment in green initiatives, designed to make the UK a leader in green technology. The results were amazing. Giving many countries’ reticence to reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions to slow down global warming, over the next four years companies across the UK started to produce products to do just this. Exports began to rise as these products, including roofing tiles, which were mini solar panels, which could continue to provide electricity even when slates went missing, super-efficient heat pumps and batteries which were quick to charge, held more charge and could be recycled at end of life, all became world-leading ‘green products’. The government started offering grants for homeowners to replace the slates on their houses with the new ‘solar slates’ while all new builds had to install the new roof tiles. A comprehensive network of electric vehicle charging stations and charging points, which all worked with just a credit or debit card like petrol pumps, spread like ivy across the country. Colleges and universities introduced new courses based on these new technologies and “green apprenticeships” ballooned across the nation.

Operation Hope continued to run its course with varied results but at the end of the five years 4,780 families were still involved and the overall results were staggering. The footage captured from the TV interviews were edited together into a 10-part TV series (niftily called “Operation Hope”) giving the public a chance to see the difference the £250,000 had made to the lives of these families. I was interviewed for the final episode and have to say could not have been prouder of what I saw. The families who put themselves forward for the £1 million jackpot prize all gave compelling presentations and explanations as to why they felt they should win the money and, in the end, I decided to offer a further four prizes of £1m so there could be five winners. Many people said I was crazy to do this but seeing where these families had come from and where they had got to, I would like to have given them all £1 million!

For me Operation Hope had worked in two main ways. It had shown that given the resources most families want to take part in society, want a better future for their kids, and want to improve their lot. More importantly it had encouraged the government to introduce a levelling up tax giving it resources to develop new green initiatives (many of which became world leading) but also to improve and reinvigorate public services. With this came hope of a better future for the whole country. Sure, we still had rich people and poor people, but across the country the rich people were slightly less comfortable (some journalists called them the “new, poor, rich”) while the poor people were slightly more comfortable with better health services, better social care, and more and better public spaces including 48 new parks across the country, 84 new allotments, and brand new public toilets across the entire UK. Had we become Singapore or Switzerland? No. But was the country a better place to live in and to travel around? Yes, absolutely. Was there more to be done? For sure. In their following five-year term Labour abolished public schools, revised Council tax (so it was based on revaluations of properties with those owning properties valued at over £1 million paying significantly more than those with properties worth less than £1m and property owners, not tenants, paying the tax on properties which were rented out), and, amazingly, changed the voting system from First past the post to Proportional Representation. They also strengthened the laws regarding business placing responsibility for illegal acts not just on the company but also on the Board of Directors who, if found guilty, could now be held personally accountable and given custodial sentences. They also restarted building social housing. We’d come a long way. Operation Hope had not just given hope to the families who took part but, seemingly, had helped to give hope to the whole country. What an amazing investment, and all for £1.25 billion, plus £100,000 from Piers!

I never got the chance to go back onto “The Piers Morgan Show” as it was cancelled due to poor ratings nine months after my appearance. Cherri, with an i, became my PA and I continued to wear my blue, lucky flying storks, shirt as I pondered what else I could do to get stuff sorted out for the other 99.5%.