Is this what we want ?

Difficult reading in the Grauniad this week. A report that 12 families in the UK own wealth equivalent to the collected wealth of the poorest 20% of the population.

Not much discussion of this around, though. Could it be that it is just too uncomfortable a fact to get to grips with ?

It takes some thinking about. That 20%, in very broad terms, based on a population of 60m people, is 12 000 000 people. It's worth seeing the noughts rather than just the 'm' in this case.

My maths says that makes 1 rich family equivalent to 1m non-rich people.

Some of these non-rich people are using food banks as never before. Some of these non-rich people are choosing between eating and heating. Some of these non-rich people have no financial resilience whatsoever: no savings, no prospect of savings.

All of these non-rich people are people.

The Grauniad story is stunning, shocking, just mind-blowing. Our political view of ourselves as a nation is very different. We self-identify as the cradle of modern democracy, we parade our tolerance, we brag about our freedom of speech, we exult in our political sophistication, we rejoice in our mother of parliaments.

Is this the kind of inequality that we wish to promote, or even tolerate ?

John Bright said that what was morally wrong could never be politically right.

Isn't it time to take this concept rather closer to heart and ask some slightly deeper questions about the kind of society we wish to live in ? Assuming, arguendo, that we don't feel entirely happy that the non-rich are expected to live their impoverished lives in support of the lavishly wealthy.

This isn't the politics of envy. It's the politics of equity. It's politics as if people mattered.