When moral standing is made homeless

Knowing when you are there

Like mine, I could imagine that many minds are filled with one type of regret or the other, where an unfortunate lack of insight at an opportunity we find ourselves in is not used to any benefit until we have left that position.

The power of hindsight reveals how we have misused both opportunity and responsibility, when that unique situation we were presented with offered more than we realised we could do.

A friend tried to contextualise this with people who have been in power, position, and providence, who failed to understand what they could do to change, improve, or give enduring value to things and on their exit have resorted to writing memoirs about how they were unable to do things they were so uniquely able to do, when they were in that position.

Perfect vision outside power

However, this extends into other spheres of existence how when not endued with power, much is said, but when those who saw so clearly out of power assume power, the realities dictate everything that borders on hypocrisy and worse.

How one can soon forget the moral standing that comes with position that you are left defending the indefensible and justifying the unjustifiable.

Much as a critique of our current government is difficult, it can be encapsulated in the recent resignation last week of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for Homelessness and Democracy) whose brief and responsibilities need detailing for context and understanding.

• Homelessness and rough sleeping
• Housing delivery and strategy engagement
• Homeownership and homebuying process
• Supported housing and domestic abuse
• Elections policy and delivery
• Planning casework

A total lack of awareness

It just so happens that as she was pushing reforms through the parliamentary process, she ran afoul of the protections she was seeking to put in place. She evicted her tenants on the pretext of needing to sell her property, only to put the property back on the rental market, a couple of weeks later, at a hiked-up rate.

She might protest that she had done nothing wrong and every idea that this was rank hypocrisy might have been an unfortunate coincidence of realising her property could not be sold for the asking price, leaving her no other option but to access the rental market again, but other lives are unravelled and upturned, I dare say, landlord greed entered the fray.

Invariably, she created an untenable situation for herself in government, that the only recourse was to tender her resignation. You cannot superintend a law where appearances suggest that it is one law for others whilst you find yourself outside the ambit of the same law being promulgated.

Then taxes went up again

Moreso, I can remember in March 2024, the current Prime Minister then in opposition lamented that we had reached the highest tax burden in 70 years, only for them to gain power in July 2024 to find a £20 billion black hole.

That has instigated another tax hike that might take the burden to the highest in about a century, but how amnesia has overwhelmed any reckoning or memory. [BBC News: Tory Budget 2024: Is the tax take the highest for 70 years?] [BBC News: Labour Budget 2024: Key points at a glance]

Meanwhile, that was £45 less, per month, on my take home pay when it all took effect, and they are not yet done with the proposed tax rises. It just looks like the black hole is getting bigger. [BBC News: Reeves must raise tax to cover £41bn gap, says think tank] [The Guardian: Reeves and Starmer to prepare ground for tax rises in a difficult autumn budget]

Let’s talk for the voiceless

It is easy to talk in opposition, when in power, reality bites and the choices to be made are more impactful and far-reaching than they let on. Let us not delude ourselves, our politicians are in the same game of trade-offs, beholding to some with great influence and less so to those without a strong voice.

Except if you were a tenant of Rushanara Ali who were fortunate to have their distress amplified enough to force the minister’s hand, you are like many, on your own. [BBC News: Homelessness Minister Rushanara Ali quits over rent hike claims]

The responsibility of having opportunity and being in power is a great one, we often fail to make it easier for those who gave us that opportunity to do something significant.

Thought Picnic: And we all were not Will Smith at the Oscars

We all have opinions

I have read with interest the many fanciful and interesting ideas and notions of people who with the benefit of hindsight and the ample opportunity for reflection would have done something differently well away from the heat of the moment when presented with circumstances that demand immediate response for which limited restraint is possible.

It reminds me of many football fans who with the benefit of panoramic views of a stadium and sight of literally all angles come to the conclusion that a footballer who has through dint of hard work and recognition of coach and peers has earned their place by virtue of talent and ability to be in that team. We forget that the person is limited to their span of vision in that setting trying to assess and respond to situations happening to and around them to find advantage for themselves and the team whilst seeking to disadvantage the opposing players and still contribute to winning the match.

Rarely the real perspective

If a footballer had the range of vision of television camera or a spectator with the kind of full anticipation of the pace and the direction of the game, we probably would be watching a different kind of football. If anything, it shows how penalty kick deciders are more than just being able to kick a ball into the net at close range, the tension, the expectation, the anticipation, and most evidently luck plays increasingly important parts in a goal being scored or the ball being saved.

A recently globally televised altercation of a rather insensitive joke made in ribaldry, to shock and amuse was met with a necessary whilst unfortunate rebuke in defence of a spouse whose partner might have been urged by her apparent discomfiture to act quite decisively to put an end to such levity. You can make jokes of anything, and yet, courtesy demands that some courtesy, sensitivity, and understanding be paid to difficult situations or unfortunate infirmities, you do not have to disgusting.

That we blab from our armchairs

To make jokes at the expense of race, disability, or sexuality would be so readily frowned upon and excoriated with the heaping of opprobrium on the joker. That we would readily accept a joke at the expense of a person who has lost a particular expression of their personality and beauty due to a condition that cannot be arrested and managed is to lose a certain sense of perspective.

Now, this is not an excuse for violent retribution, but we should be careful that we do not from our suitable armchairs of comfort be so conveniently positioned for unencumbered postulation, ruling the world on our ample backsides with opinions of idealistic but usually impossible to live realities. How we all would have acted with wit, restraint and the wherewithal to cool our tempers in the heat of the moment, as we are the epitome of the best manners and perfection. You never have to walk a long hard mile in anyone's shoes when you're sitting down.