London has the biggest wealth divide Poor now ‘slaves’ to London’s rich

London has become the most unequal city in the western world, with the difference between rich and poor creating an Indian style "social caste" system, a leading academic claims.

In a new book, Injustice: Why Social Inequality Exists, Professor Danny Dorling underlines many of the issues raised by the Evening Standard's Dispossessed campaign to highlight the plight of the capital's underclass.

The book discloses that the richest tenth of people had an average wealth of £933,563, a figure 273 times greater than the lowest 10 per cent, with an average wealth of £3,420.

The gap is bigger than comparable cities such as New York or Tokyo.

The disclosures will add pressure on all parties to campaign on eradicating poverty.

Professor Dorling said: "The wealth gap has created a social divide so big it now resembles an Indian caste system where people in London only mix with those from their own income brackets and have little to do with those outside."

He spoke of a servant culture between poor and rich: "They serve in coffee shops, clean houses, make beds in hotels, care for their children and drive their cars and taxis."

Professor Dorling, a professor of social geography at Sheffield University, concluded: "We are getting wealth inequalities in London now that have not been seen since the days of a slave-owning elite."