What recession? Britain's richest get richer still to share record £414bnReported by Metro.co.uk on Sunday, 29 April 2012 (on April 29, 2012)
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*The richest people in Britain got even richer last year, with the UK's 1,000 wealthiest people sharing a record £414.26 billion fortune according to the Sunday Times Rich List.*
Lakshmi Mittal was again Britain's richest man, despite losing £4.8 billion in the last year (Picture: EPA)
With the UK currently in the grips of a double-dip recession and toiling with record levels of unemployment, the country's richest bucked the trend to surpass the previous highest combined total of £412.85 billion, which was set before the financial crisis in 2008.
There were 77 billionaires in 2012, two up from the previous high set in 2008, while the threshold to be included in the top 1,000 rose £2 million to £70 million.
Steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and his family topped the list for the eighth year running with £12.7 billion despite seeing 27 per cent wiped off their fortune in the last year.
Arsenal shareholder and Uzbek metals magnate Alisher Usmanov was second on £12.3 billion, followed by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich with £9.5 billion.
Arsenal FC shareholder Alisher Usmanov (Picture: EPA)
Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich (Picture: EPA)
The Duke of Westminster was again the wealthiest Briton owing to his £7.35 billion central London property empire.
The publication of the rich list came as one of the country's senior Catholics criticised the government for its 'immoral' support of the wealthy.
Cardinal Keith O'Brian, head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, said: 'The poor have suffered tremendously from the financial disasters of recent years and nothing, really, has been done by the very rich people to help them.'
The cardinal told the BBC it was not just those people in 'abject poverty' who were struggling, but people who previously regarded themselves as 'reasonably well-off'.
'People who have saved for their pensions and now realise their pension funds are no more, people who are considering giving up their retirement homes that they have been saving for, poverty affecting young couples and so on and so on,' he continued.
'It is these people who have had to suffer because of the financial disasters of recent years and it is immoral.
'It is not moral, just to ignore them and to say 'struggle along', while the rich can go sailing along in their own sweet way.'
A Downing St spokesperson commented: 'The government inherited enormous debt but the prime minister is determined to help people who are struggling with the consequences of that.
'That's why the last Budget took two million people on the lowest incomes out of tax altogether and from April 2012 pensioners will see the largest ever cash rise in the basic state pension.'
Top ten UK billionaires
1 - Lakshmi Mittal and family - £12.7 billion
2 - Alisher Usmanov - £12.3 billion
3 - Roman Abramovich - £9.5 billion
4 - Sri and Gopi Hinduja - £8.6 billion
5 - Leonard Blavatnik - £7.58 billion
6 - Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli - £7.4 billion
7 - The Duke of Westminster - £7.35 billion
8 - David and Simon Reuben - £7.08 billion
9 - John Fredriksen and family - £6.6 billion
10 - Galen and George Weston and family - £5.9 billion
Links:  Full news story
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