New figures released in a Department of Transport survey show that the top 10% of the most frequent flyers in England took more than 50% of all international flights last year and that 1% of English residents took nearly 20% of all flights abroad. By contrast, 48% of us (hello! My name is Lucy Mangan and I do not even have a passport) took no flights abroad at all.

It is a reminder of the eternal truth that in most areas of life it is a particularly poisonous – almost literally in this case – few that ruin things for the rest of us. From the people who drive with their radios at full blast and shatter the peace of every passerby to the handful of companies that set the bar for workers’ rights (and lack thereof) and make it uncompetitive for anyone else to do right by theirs, to the handful of billionaires who carry on sucking up the world’s money and resources, to the megalomaniac elite who dominate our politics – wherever you look, this kind of disproportion is embedded.

I don’t know why this so often gets overlooked – why we so often go after the many instead of the few. Is it really easier to try to change millions of individuals’ recycling habits than legislate against industrial pollution? Is it really better to encourage people to “shop local” instead of taxing Amazon properly? And so very much on.

The older and more impatient I get, the more I cleave to the dream of culling the worst offending 10% of the international population – nothing violent, just putting them all on the Isle of Wight and keeping them fed and watered until they reach the end of their allotted spans – and revolutionising the quality of life for the remaining 90%.

Thinking small and very, very focused will save us yet.

• Lucy Mangan is a Guardian writer