Privilege blindness is a choice

It is not uncommon for me to get very upset about a policy announcement, action or inaction from the current government. In fact I am starting to feel quiet depressed at the current situation to the point of spending large amounts of my day shouting or wanting to cry.

But today something happened that was so revolting it made even my mild mannered, peaceful husband shout 'what?'  and declare that he was very upset. I am referring of course to the announcement that housing benefit might be withdrawn from those under 25.

I'll be honest I've not read beyond the headlines, I can't bring myself too, I may end up in a quivering wreck on the floor. What upsets me most is that the political classes cannot pretend not to understand what they are doing.

I had an incredibly privileged upbringing, I've done the boarding school thing, I've done the Oxbridge thing, I've done the live at home at 22 thing. I understand that my life experience is not everyone's, I also understand that my life experience is grossly unfair. I choose not to let my privilege blind me. There may be many many things that my privilege makes it hard for me to understand, I am sure I have attitudes and prejudices that are just plain wrong and need changing and challenging, but God blessed me with two ears and I, to the best of my ability, choose to use them to understand the world.

David Cameron studied PPE. He must have been presented with a range of political theories so he has had alternative world views to choose from. He must know it is a possibility that young people on housing benefit are not mealy lazy scroungers.

And all this in the name of austerity. This is where the political classes  are really choosing to remain privilege blind. Spouting off rhetoric about austerity while none of them have to worry about what there children will eat tomorrow, whether they will be able to afford school shoes, how to pay the gas bill and resist the temptation to bye a wide screen TV on credit to paper over the wounds of poverty inflicted on them. They do not know what austerity means yet they use the word like it is everyone else who does not understand.

What struck me recently is that there is not actually less stuff, there's been no harvest failure, no mass loss of crops or livestock (not in uk at least) nothing real has changed since 2008, just economics and politics, just a change in hot air. There is more than enough to go round. The wealth of the richest thousand people in Britian has increased by £30bn more than the deficit and most of them pay significantly less tax as a proportion than the rest of us (with the exception of Dyson and Rowling).

It's all so very very wrong. And Mr. Milliband - I am very upset with you. Here's an idea; how about rather than joining the 'the Eastern Europeans are stealing British jobs' rhetoric you could point out that if we insisted on paying a living wage the 'competition' would disappear and workers would realise that they stood in solidarity with each other wherever they where from and that the real opponent was the powerful. If it is true (and I doubt it) that British workers are losing out on jobs because others will work for less, in worse conditions, then yes we could sort that by preventing people 'coming in' or we could not let employers exploit them then they would have no vested interest in employing them instead of those who have the power not to tolerate abuse. This should be pretty obvious you are called Labour for a reason.

We have not seen levels of inequality like the current ones since Dickensian days. Yes the levels of absolute poverty may be slightly different but inequalitie is huge and is the major problem not the deficit.

So to all politicians I would like to wake up tomorrow and not have to apologise to my daughter for the world she is going to grow up in. Just for a day could you chose to see the world through someone else's eyes.