UK Inequality

While the average weekly household spend was found to be £531.30, there was great variation of this amount between the highest and lowest earning 10 per cent - £1,143.40 and £188.50 per week respectively.

More telling were statistics which showed that the richest 10 per cent spent as much on buying cigarettes and alcohol in a week as the poorest 10 per cent did on their gas and electricity bills in seven days - £18.70.

The richest 10 per cent of households spent more per week on furniture - £43.40 - than the poorest spent on food - £30.40.

And the highest-earning 10 per cent also spent more on wine per week - £8.70, compared to the amount the lowest earners spent on their water bills - £6.90.

Duncan Exley, director of the Equality Trust, condemned the figures as an indictment on politicians’ inability to grasp how unequal Britain has become. He told The Independent: “When you look at what the poorest are spending their money on, it’s really the bare essentials. Compare that with the richest and you see just how grotesquely unequal our country has become…When a tiny number of people are rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and millions more are struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their head, it's clear we've lost our way. It's not only the poorest who are affected. The rungs on the ladder have grown further and further apart, making it harder for all ordinary people to get on.”