Level Ground

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Levelling up? We all know it's a bollocks sales pitch from the bunch of half-wits that we choose to call our government; however, it was good to hear another like-minded old geezer - sorry, person of mature years - on BBC's 'Any Answers' this afternoon, espousing a concept that I've rattled on about for years, and which harbours an absolutely essential grain of truth: levelling down. The simplicity of the idea! The average per capita income of the UK is circa £35K: that's all of us, individually, of working age. Not only does this put the vast inequities extant here - and elsewhere - into context, but it offers the only solution to the privations of the majority in support of the very small minority that control the cash.

Further on in the discussion was the question of how to drive this redistribution of wealth through the political process and into legislative reality. Ideas such as this are difficult to sell in aspirational times of plenty, but in such straitened times as now, maybe less so? A significant percentage of the voting population of this archipelago is now effectively approaching actual poverty, and far from this being the politics of envy, so crassly trotted out by the Tories in response to any opposing view, the politics and reality of need must surely dictate our next steps. The Labour Party now need to ensure that they are on the side of need, not want. The time for the politics of greed have to be numbered, for all our sakes. It's time for the inequality to end. It's time for levelling: but towards the centre ground, not up. Everyone can be more than adequately off - to most it would be riches - it's just the stupidly rich that will have to sacrifice some of their surplus wealth to the common good...

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