Why so many politicians are estranged from reality – Professional middle-class MPs can’t empathise with those struggling to stay afloat, says Jill Segger
Catholic Herald
Not long after he had been taken from his abbey to become Archbishop of Westminster, Basil Hume gave a television interview. Asked what he considered the besetting sin of our society, he delved deep within himself, giving rise to a long silence which must have unnerved his interviewer.
Most viewers probably expected a reference to sexual morality or reproductive ethics. The answer which eventually emerged from that wise and holy man was as much a sigh as a word: “materialism”.
The two meanings of that word are closely, though not inextricably linked.
There are many good people who, while believing that nothing exists beyond the material world, still manage to avoid the destructive and widely prevalent disorder of “excessive interest in, and desire for, money or possessions”.
For those of us who reject the first definition, there is much thinking to be done as to the nature of the second and of its down-draft upon our lives.
Greed has become so entrenched in our culture that it has displaced honest and proportionate aspiration.
Worse, it has deepened the divide of which Disraeli wrote when describing the gulf between rich and poor in the England of 1845: “Two nations, between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones or inhabitants of different planets.”
Nowhere is that ignorance more apparent or damaging than in some recent comments and responses made by politicians.
There have been more than enough broadsides against the manner in which some MPs abused their expense allowances. It is more profitable to examine our own attitudes in the light of the estrangement from reality manifested in last week’s remarks from Alan Duncan, the Shadow Leader of the Commons.
Mr Duncan is a wealthy man who was an oil trader before entering Parliament. As a backbencher, he receives a salary of £64,766 – almost three times the British median wage. Despite this, Heydon Prowse, editor of the online magazine Don’t Panic, taped him expressing the opinion that MPs are “on rations and treated like s—”.
Mr Duncan’s subsequent admission that voters do not want to hear politicians “whingeing” appears to be an embarrassed response to exposure rather than a conversion of manners and morals. Members of Parliament are in a financially privileged position and those of them who are unaware of their considerable advantages should be sharply reminded of the realities of economic life for most working people.
E M Forster wrote that “money pads the edges of things”.
There are many in our society who have no padding and for whom the edge of things is very sharp indeed.
An increasing number of MPs are drawn from a narrow band of the professional middle class and have become isolated from the reality of struggling to make ends meet on modest incomes or benefits. Their paths too often run from university to safe parliamentary seat via employment in a think-tank or as a ministerial special adviser.
The current arguments over women-only short lists for the selection of parliamentary candidates are irrelevant in the face of this growing divide. A few worker-only short lists would do a great deal more to bring MPs closer to the lives of people they represent. It is notable that the former postman Alan Johnson is the only member of the Labour Cabinet to have held a recognisably working-class job.
Yvette Cooper is typical of that growing class of fast-tracked younger politicians who have no experience of what most of us would understand as normal employment. Her recent radio encounter with a single man on Jobseeker’s Allowance exposed that deficiency and made for painful listening.
This man, unable to find work and required to live on £64 a week, was left with £3 a day for food and all other expenses after he had paid his utility bills and the portion of his rent not covered by housing benefit. Without a trace of anger or aggression, he asked the Minister for Work and Pensions how he was to manage.
Ms Cooper, whose husband Ed Balls is also a Cabinet Minister (joint household income £289,000), appeared utterly unable to engage with this desperate situation. Her only response was to recite the usual tropes about the wonders of Jobcentre Plus and the Government’s commitment to getting people back into work.
The plight of this man, living in an area of high unemployment, without the dependants who would have delivered him a more realistic level of benefits and with an experience of the Jobcentre at odds with Ms Cooper’s spin on that agency, was simply outside her frame of reference.
But MPs are drawn from among us and will therefore mirror the mores of our society. So if we take exception to the graceless behaviour of Mr Duncan and Ms Cooper, it would be wise to look at what it is they are reflecting back to us.
An already wealthy man thinks himself badly done to on almost £65,000 per year. A woman living in a household with a weekly income of over £5,000 is unable to make a humane response to a citizen struggling on the edge of economic existence. These failings are not unique to politicians and those of us who have been warned of the relationship between our treasure and our hearts must not be drawn into acquiescence with this culture of isolation and discontent.
A civilised society should deliver every worker sufficient return to ensure secure housing, food, heating and the means to raise children in decency. That must include enough disposable income to enable a mutually nourishing participation in the life of our society.
A large house, an upmarket car, plentiful luxury goods and multiple foreign holidays are not entitlements and their absence is not an index of inadequate remuneration.
The “new politics” of which we currently hear so much cannot be left to politicians. We must make clear the values we wish MPs to represent by the example of own lives. And that demands not only a knowledge of the sharp edge of things, but a refusal to countenance the complacency and indifference which goes with being at a comfortable distance from that uncomfortable place.
This is the fault which so grieved Cardinal Hume – that goods and status have become more important than an awareness of our mutuality and God-given dignity. It is not only politicians who are blinded to the demands of justice and solidarity by an expectation of luxurious living.
Tags: Politics