Friday 3rd February

We are all born on a ladder; some were on the bottom rungs and managed by guile and a few helping hands to clamber up a few steps; some were born in the middle, things weren’t too bad but maybe if they were lazy or unlucky they slipped down a few rungs; and some were born near the top and have never had to struggle, private education and a trust fund and a good job beckoned.  And there isn’t much we can do about it.  It is human nature to protect the family, and try to pass on whatever benefits possible to the next generation.  The trouble is that it gets institutionalized and then we get the class system which tries to rigidly keep us all in our place, on our ‘appropriate’ rung on the ladder.

And so it is with Politics.  After the war we had, possibly the greatest Socialist Government ever; there was a feeling, common after wars, that things couldn’t go on like this, that there had to be change; the NHS was created and the Welfare State, and there was a huge surge in opportunity for kids born on the lower rungs of the ladder.  I was one myself, Mum and Dad had nothing when they got married, but they soon had a council house and I received an excellent education and went to the Grammar School.  But there was also the greatest increase in personal wealth during the Sixties and Seventies and even into the Eighties, home ownership boomed, motor cars and foreign holidays – but most important was the understanding that each generation would have a better life than their parents, would live longer, have better jobs, have to struggle less.  And the ladder would be far easier to scale, in fact the whole idea of the ladder would be meaningless as everyone would have a good life.

But it hasn’t worked out that way.  The post-war consensus, first challenged by Thatcher has now fallen away and we are in a new era.  Socialism was always about those on the higher and middle rungs of the ladder reaching down and offering a helping hand to the unfortunate ones who had slipped sown to the lower rungs.  This was to be done by encouragement and persuasion and an understanding that we would all benefit.  But now it is presented more and more as somehow punishing those who have done well, and rewarding the lazy, and there is resentment from the ‘haves’ against the ‘have nots’.  Conservatism was always about slowing down the pace of change, of clinging on to the best of the past, of preserving family and institutions from the ravages of Modern life.  Now it is all about the ladder, of stopping those coming up from gaining a foothold and possibly dislodging those already there.  And the far right is all about stamping on the fingers of those on the lower rungs, and when fingers won’t do, then they will stamp on the faces.

We are in danger of slipping back into the pre-war days of the super-rich and a shrinking middle and ‘the rest’; of privilege and private health and education at the expense of public provision.  The very idea of increasing taxation to pay for a better life for everyone is anathema to the Media and mainstream politics.  The ladder is now stretching, the spaces between the rungs widening, always just out of reach and may soon be completely un-scalable.  And one day the ladder may well be pulled away completely…