Regarding wealth arguments, the issue is two-fold: 1) the taxing policy we have in the UK and 2) the fact that the government (because it bails out banks during crisis) has control over interest rates - they already have degrees of control over inflation.
UK Tax is not a steady or base rate, rather it's several disproportionate bands. For example: People who earn 50k salaries, after tax this is reduced down to about 30k (ish). That's almost 50% taxation! Compare that to someone earning between 15-20k, who would be taxed about 15-20% - why even bother going for a 50k salary?
That's why offshore banking is so popular - you get to keep the money you earned.