They’ll never play fair

Society driven by greed cares little about poor

I’VE never been as nervous as I was last week, never. Not for the doctor, a driving test, work stuff – anything.

I got a call asking for a meter reading.

Jeez. That’s me out of it for a while, I reckon. Double what I was paying.

The woman on the phone was pretty sympathetic, explaining: “It’s energy wholesale costs. There’s nothing we can do.”

“I know, I know. But, but I’ve just bought a new toaster.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that sir.” Similar level of care from Mr Sunak, I dunno if you watched it. It’s not as bad for me as it is for a lot of people – but now I’m in a position where I have to be extremely selective about when I put the TV on.

Burden

By now, I’m sure you’re aware of the headlines. We all get a £1,100 hit this year, richer families £3,000, the biggest tax burden since the war, 1.3 million people into poverty, etc, etc.

The 5p he knocked off fuel only cancelled out the 5p fuel went up by last week. Not good. Not good at all.

It was always going to be bad news. The only glimmer of light is that it undermines this idea the Tories are the party of economic competence and that will be handy at the next election.

But that is a small consolation when experts are talking about heating or eating again, and Age UK says 62% of pensioners are worried about heating their homes. The worst bit about this – and I know this is playing the man, not the ball – is that this terrible economic shock is delivered by a millionaire who will never, ever, have to worry about money, to a room full of people who have just seen their wages go up by a couple of grand, while everyone else is flatlining and pensioners are going backwards.

I touched on this last week, and I apologise, but I’m in a long-standing argument about what happens when Covid finally passes.

My optimistic friend reckons the world will reinvent itself as some sort of utopia. I reckon it won’t.

Capitalism is inherently greedy, it has to be to work. But, as my friend reckons, surely the pandemic should have operated as some sort of wake-up call for how things are run?

His point: How does a nurse earn so much less – an incredible amount less – than the character running the hospital? Surely, he says, it should be fairer. Like, who needs a six or seven-figure salary anyway?

And who could draw one when you’re watching people struggling, kids going hungry, working people queuing for a food bank?

I think that’s the issue for me, why it will never change. As long as people can trouser a big pay packet while watching other people struggle, then none of this is going to change.

It would take a lightbulb moment of self-awareness, a sea-change in what’s important and a mass development of social conscience before anything got any better.

Not going to happen. Even the P&O bloke is taking his bonus.

Enough of the Wolfie Smith stuff. Screaming into the void with that one.

What else is going on? I woke up to headlines that Boris Johnson is public enemy number one with the Kremlin.

Finally, something we can agree on.