You don't have to be an avid trawler of online news, or a TV News addict, or a close reader of newspapers, Tabloid or Broadsheet, to be aware of the ironies that are darting around in the political rhetoric and economic pontificating and partially informed opinionating these past few days.
Let me begin with the word "fair". We all want a fairer society – that is an assumed given, stated with omniscient assurance by representatives of almost every political colour and position. Except each time it is repeated it sounds less like a moral given, and more like a vested interest mantra. Fairness is a matter of standpoint. Something is fair depending on which point I stand, my point of view. So even if fairness was an acceptable moral concept, it is such a subjectively loaded one that it isn't much use in social discourse, or discourse about society.
Now – do I want a fairer society? Think about it. What relation does fairness bear to mercy? "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy", seems a reasonable and fair deal. If you care for troubled and suffering people, you'll be cared for when you are in trouble or suffering. But I'm not sure Jesus meant such a radical quid pro quo – mercy is precisely not giving someone what they deserve, but what compassion demands.
Do I want a fairer society? Well if everything is fair, then words like generosity and grudge become redundant because everyone gets what they get with no remainder. What is fair about giving a gift? What is fair about being given a gift? Where does generosity come on the spectrum of calculated entitlement we call fairness?
Do I want a fairer society? Does that mean everyone gets treated the same? But what about the ludicrously obvious fact that we are not the same? Doesn't the sheer diversity of opportunity, natural giftedness, circumstances of birth, socio – economic starting point, genetic inheritance, the happenstance of life's experience mean that, to put it in tautological terms, we are each very unique?
Do I want a fairer society? What does fairness look like for Stephen Lawrence's family. Justice isn't the same thing, though it is an essential aim of the moral and humane society. What was profoundly unfair, toxic and cruel was violence against a young man because of his colour. Justice does not put that right – it does however state the importance and uniqueness of each life, and the cost and consequence of violence, to victim and perpetrator. But the word fair is seen for what it is in this situation – facile and superficial.
Which brings me to irony, the irony of elevating the word "fair" to the top of the political point scoring league. Yesterday we had Ian Duncan Smith promising he was not seeking to punish the poor by capping benefits. We had Vince Cable hand wringing about how to curb excessive board-room salaries, bonuses and other complex formulae for remunerative rip-offs. And various politicians speaking on my behalf as a taxpayer about what was and was not fair to me. It isn't fair that I work hard, earn money, pay taxers only to see these taxes fall into the benefits black hole. It isn't fair that I work hard, earn money and pay my taxes, and in a lifetime's work would not come close to earning a modest bank executive's annual package with bonuses.
Three comments more. First – to use the phrase "punish the poor" whether to deny it or recommend it, is to use the vocabulary of a welfare state suffering a serious case of semantic amnesia; it is also to reveal an unacceptable lack of emotional intelligence and social awareness.
Second to try to save some millions of pounds by capping benefits, while doing little of any real substance to curb excessive salaries and even less to deal with the problem of tax avoidance by the rich, is not only irony. It is a failure of nerve or perhaps more seriously, a deliberate evasion of moral principle by a coalition government surviving on expediency and compromise. These are not necessarily bad words, it depends what is compromised and to whom it is expedient.
And finally, I do not think it is fair the way politicians are using the word fair to justify policies, which should require criteria that look beyond the limited horizons of mere fairness. The cost of caring for the vulnerable and the poor, the old and the sick, the disadvantaged and marginalised, should not simply be lumped together with the admittedly expensive problem of welfare benefit dependency, and the exploitation of the welfare system. To do so is not fair – and nothing is solved if you replace one unfairness with another.
This is a ridiculously unfair question and I'm quite prepared to be laughed at for asking it – In the choice between capping benefits and curbing excessive salaries, what would Jesus do? I know – daft question. Fair enough!