'Why doesn't he write a cheque?!' Gary Lineker accused of 'virtue signalling' after calling for Andy Burnham to 'tax millionaires more'

Gary Lineker has been accused of "virtue signalling" by GB News hosts Andrew Pierce and Miriam Cates after calling for millionaires to be "taxed more" by Andy Burnham.

Discussing the plea on GB News, Andrew questioned why the broadcaster doesn't just "write a cheque" or "transfer money to the Exchequer himself?".

In a letter to the Prime Minister named "Proud to Pay", campaign group Patriotic Millionaires UK have called for higher taxes on wealth to reduce inequality, support public infrastructure and back small businesses.

Writing in the letter, Mr Lineker said: "Paying your fair share is a basic British value, but so many ordinary people are already paying more than they can afford.

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"Our richest people can do more and most want to. Our fantastic country deserves all of us to get behind it."

Reacting to the letter, Andrew told GB News viewers: "The noble Gary Lineker is among 120 UK-based millionaires calling on Andy Burnham to impose higher taxes on their wealth in an open letter.

"It's very simple. If that's what he wants to do, why doesn't he just write a cheque or transfer some money to the Exchequer? That's a simple thing."

The Britain's Newsroom host stressed that wealth taxes have been withdrawn in many countries as they raise "so little money".

He explained: "Wealth taxes throughout Europe have been withdrawn. There's only three wealth taxes left now, Switzerland, Spain and Norway.

"In Spain, if they withdrew it, apparently they wouldn't even notice because it raises so little money. They're very expensive to administer and it also leads to a flight of capital."

Agreeing with Andrew, Miriam argued that a wealth tax would "completely discourage" businesses from growing in the UK.

She said: "It would completely discourage people from growing businesses, from employing people, from trying to create wealth.

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"Millionaires, if they want to, there's a facility on the HMRC website where you can pay more tax. I suppose a lot of millionaires, if they do have spare cash that they want to use altruistically, prefer to give it to charities or foundations.

"They'd get tax relief, but also I think a lot of people don't think that our tax money is well spent. That's the problem."

Andrew recalled a dispute involving Gary Lineker in 2023, where he won an appeal over a £5million tax bill".

He said: "In March 2023, Gary Lineker won his appeal against the taxman over a £5million tax bill, so he didn't want to pay it.

"He was protesting it then about his tax bill, and now he wants to pay more. Mr Lineker, just pay them more. That's what you do."

Miriam argued that the move by Lineker is "virtue signalling".

She concluded: "It is virtue signalling Andrew, isn't it? Of course, you've got to tax rich people a lot more than people who aren't on the same income, but if you take it over a certain level, people leave the country.

"It's easy to think if we just tax rich people more, the Treasury would raise more money. But there just aren't mathematically enough rich people."

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