As we watch the government make our lives harder with cuts in pay, pensions, benefits, the creation of 'two tier' services and generally soaring inequality we tend to forget that it is we who put them there. They are not our rulers, they are our representatives.
Rulers rule in their own interests. They hold their power
and wealth by force of law and arms. The spoon belongs to them, and they ladle
out goodies to whom they wish.
Representatives in a democracy rule in the interests of
those they represent. They hold their power because we give it to them in
elections. The spoon belongs to us, and we trust them to ladle out goodies in
all our interests.
Inevitably, whether it is Ruler or Representative holding
the ladle, it is the closest people who get served most generously and those furthest away who get the dregs.
We provide some graphs using data from a House of Commons report to show who is closest to our representatives in Parliament. Perhaps they provide a clue why successive Tory and Labour governments have steered Britain back to Victorian levels of inequality:
a) According to Department of Education data, just 1% of England's school leavers in 2009/10 went to Oxbridge, compared to a quarter of MPs. 48% of England's school leavers did not go to university at all.
b) 6% of children are privately educated. In contrast, over half the Tory MPs and over a third of all MPs from the three main parties went to private schools.
