Saviour of the Poor- A Review of The Trading Game By Gary Stevenson

Great Story, Same Old Rhetoric

You learn fast that no one’s coming to save you.

Not in kitchens. Not in back alleys or betting shops. Not when the fryer dies mid-service and the orders keep piling up.

That’s the advice I gave my son recently when he asked if I’d heard of Gary Stevenson, the author of The Trading Game and self-professed saviour of the proletariat.

You move. You hustle. You keep the line alive. Because that's the only promise worth a damn, show up, or it burns you down.

That’s why I get twitchy when I hear people like Gary Stevenson talk about how broken it all is. How capitalism’s a con, how the rich are winning because the rules are rigged. Like it’s all a crooked casino, and the only fix is to pull the plug, crank up the taxes, and let the government clean up the mess.

I’ve read The Trading Game. Listened to the interviews, watched the clips. The story’s good — too good. Working‑class math genius dives into high finance, outsmarts the sharks, makes millions, then walks away hollow. Cue the epiphany. Now he’s burdened with truth, full of gospel, calling for a new economic morality, whilst wearing his realatable working class tracksuit.

It’s compelling. But it’s also wrong.
Not because the facts are off, inequality exists. Wages stagnate. The deck leans. Sure. But it’s the leap Stevenson makes that breaks the spell — the tidy jump from observation to prescription.
From “this is hard” to “burn it down.” From “some struggle” to “capitalism is dead.”

And his fix?
More state. More tax. More bureaucracy.
More suits who’ve never swung a mop telling us how to make things “fair.”

But here's the thing:
Capitalism is the kitchen.
Every service is a bet. Every hour you clock, every burn you earn, every ticket you crush is a transaction.
You give something. You get something. You get out what you put in — if you're lucky, if you're good, if you bleed a little more than the next guy. That’s not a flaw. That’s the goddamn deal.

A Real British Story That Matters

Take Richard Bainbridge in Norwich. From dyslexic kid in a single‑parent home, he fell into a kitchen at 13 and found his place amid the chaos—washing pots, sweating through prep, learning camaraderie and praise where school gave him none youtube.com+11thetimes.co.uk+11restaurantindia.in+11. He slogged through Michelin‑star kitchens, worked 100‑hour weeks, scraped together £98,000 in life savings (plus family loans) to open Benedicts in 2015. They had £20 in the bank on day one thetimes.co.uk. But he showed up. He built it. On grit, craft, and a no‑handouts ethic.

When Great British Menu spotlighted him, business took off. During lockdown, he pivoted—selling online pantry goods and smoking nuts himself—growing a £1 million‑plus business, employing 18 locals, prioritising staff welfare and sustainability thetimes.co.uk. He resisted expanding into a chain because hospitality is fragile, he said—“No matter how big your name is… hospitality is in the hardest place it’s ever been” thetimes.co.uk+1thesun.co.uk+1.

Here’s the point: that’s the story that doesn’t trend. But it happens every day, messy, risky, beautiful. No blueprint. No bailouts. Just effort and freedom.

Stevenson says low interest rates fed inequality. Maybe. But they also give broke kids in Britain the chance to borrow cheap and build a kitchen of their own. He sees crooked ladders; I see people climbing them, like Bainbridge did.

He walked away with millions, and now he wants to raise the drawbridge. For our own good, of course.
He’s not evil. Just… tidy. The kind of tidy that papers over the messy miracle of people dragging themselves forward without a saviour.

His solution?
Higher taxes. Bigger government. More redistribution.
We’ve seen that movie. It ends in paperwork. Waiting rooms. Layers of administration so thick you forget what the original problem was.

You don’t fix inequality by dragging everyone to the middle.
You fix it by pushing the bottom up, not with handouts, but with access. Not by punishing ambition, but by clearing the path for more of it.

I’m not defending cronyism. Let the market punish the frauds. Axe the corporate welfare. Smash the golden parachutes. But don’t kill the machine because some people cheat the game.

Let people keep what they earn. Let them risk. Let them lose. Let them try again.

Because the real dignity isn’t in being protected — it’s in being free.

And freedom isn’t tidy.
It’s messy. Risky. Sharp.
It cuts sometimes. But it matters.
Because when you build something and it works, from £20 in the bank to feeding a city, and you look at your hands and know you did that, no government program can match that feeling.

Fairness is a feeling. Freedom is a fact.

So yeah, read Gary’s book. Admire the story. He’s smart. Articulate. Righteous, even. But don’t swallow the solution whole.
We don’t need another blueprint. We need space.
To fail. To build. To bet big and eat the loss, or take the win and run.

Let success be rewarded.
Let failure mean something.
Let people move, not be moved.

And if that means the ride gets rough?
Good. That’s where the best stories live.