Nigel Farage has blasted NatWest boss Howard Davies after the £763,000-a-year banker claimed it is not difficult for Britons to get on the housing ladder.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, Mr Davies told Amol Rajan: “I don’t think it’s that difficult at the moment.”
The astonished BBC presenter had to ask whether Mr Davies was calling in from overseas, given the current housing crisis in the UK.
The rich NatWest chief patronisingly explained: “You have to save, and that’s the way it always used to be.”
He warned there are “dangers” in making mortgage credit too easy for youngsters to acquire.
The claim sparked instant outrage, with Mr Farage blasting Mr Davies as “a member of the entitled elite with no idea about NatWest’s customers or the real world”.
Speaking on GB News, the top presenter added: “Talk to anybody under the age of 40 living in any of our big cities and they are Generation Rent!
“The only way they can get onto the property ladder is if their parents give them if they’re fortunate enough, their inheritance early. It is all but impossible for young people to get on the property ladder!
“What it’s done is destroyed the culture of thrift. Howard says ‘save’, but I’ve spoken to young people who say there’s no point saving because we’re never going to save enough even to get the deposit that is now required.”
He pointed out that Mr Davies is the head of a bank with 19 million customers: “19 million customers – he couldn’t be further away from the centre of gravity of public opinion!”
He said: “He couldn’t be further away from his own customers if he tried!”
Others joined in to blast the out-of-touch banking chief, with one university lecturer saying: “Of course, it’s not difficult if you’re earning £750,000!”
Another X user said: “It’s not often I throw my toast at the radio, but Sir Howard Davies suggesting it’s not hard to get on the property ladder and people have always needed to save made me do it.
“Staggeringly disconnected from the experiences (and data) that prove this to be a terrible take.”
Mr Farage also praised the BBC for pressing Mr Davies over his response to the Dame Alison Rose debanking scandal that saw her resign for briefing personal information about Mr Farage’s bank account to the media.
He slammed Mr Davies as “one of the great establishment failure figures of our time” over his refusal not to sack Dame Alison, but also let her keep her huge remunerative package.
Mr Farage said Howard Davies should have resigned at the same time as Dame Alison, and said he’d engaged in a “pathetic attempt to cover it all up” by hiring an anti-Brexit law firm to conduct an investigation that didn’t involve interviewing him.
He added: “The inquiry finds that no one’s done anything wrong! Everything’s ticket boo. I mean this is a disgrace at every level.”
