Yes, we all know that the high fares in the front of the plane help to reduce the costs for those of us in the back. If airlines flew with only one class then we would all be complaining. But who has this sort of money and what do they really want?
The Swedes have long recognised that a country or business at ease with itself is one where the most well-off receive no more than 20 times the salary of the least well paid. So, they might argue, Cathay Pacific's prices reflect this. The First Class passenger can be separated from the Economy one on the basis of price.
That 20 times multiple salary ceiling was broken in the UK long ago. As Polly Toynbee recently remarked, inequality shot through the roof in the 1980s and the distance between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' - or 'just about managing' in modern parlance - has continued to widen. Cedric Brown of British Gas fame was awarded a salary of £475,000 (plus a bonus of £600,000) in 1995: 47 times that of his average employee. Now FTSE 100 CEOs now regularly earn £4m a year (with/without bonuses) when salaries have been frozen of pushed down for the vast majority.
The world's 26 richest people now own as much as the poorest 50%. What a terrible condemnation of our world that we should have allowed such an imbalance.
Trickle down economics - keeping taxes low for the super rich and encouraging them to splash their cash to create jobs for the less well off - has not worked. Research shows that they simply add the benefit to their wealth.
Our local newsfeed reports that the number of paupers' funerals has doubled in recent years: 77 people in Cornwall could not afford a funeral in 2017/18. The difference between those Business Class and Economy class fares on Cathay Pacific would have paid for a decent funeral for at least three of those 77: the First Class fare would have paid for more than 6. Can we not even say goodbye to people with dignity?
You do not have to be steeped in left-wing propaganda, watch Ken Loach's I Daniel Blake or Jimmy McGovern's excellent Care on the BBC to be concerned about how the 'other half'' are treated: actually, if the figures above are to be believed, it is a lot more than half. Those films have done what Brassed Off did for a previous generation showing we have learned nothing in the interim.
Jobs advertised today across Cornwall suggest salaries of around £20k for responsible sounding jobs which are well above the capabilities of a person prepared to accept the 'minimum wage'. How do you bring up a family on a salary like that? How do you even begin to contemplate putting aside some money for the deposit on a house? Even the smallest affordable house is going to cost well over 20 times that salary, way beyond anything a mortgage company might consider.
People taking these jobs are not 'failures' that can be despised by Tory politicians. They are not relying on the state (the biggest Tory crime) They are decent people wanting decent jobs to help them live a decent life. They are, or will be, taxpayers. To precis Daniel Blake, they are not numbers, customers or service users: they are citizens. They are voters.
Thankfully, some Tory MPs are beginning to notice. Heidi Allen is on a tour of England with Labour MP Frank Field, looking at some of the most deprived areas. I've absolutely had enough she says, all too aware that her party's policies have caused problems. Will it make any difference? Will her experiences feed back into the Westminster policy bubble? I somehow doubt it.
The People's Vote people are trying to find emotional slogans that will resonate with people if we are actually allowed a second referendum on Brexit: something that will counter the We told them the first time, now tell them again: the vacuous, argument-free, thuggish slogan of the Leavers.
We all know that, amongst many people up and down the country, the original Brexit vote was a protest vote about austerity, about the centralisation of power in Westminster, about the easy life of the 'haves' in the South East, paying themselves eye-watering salaries, about the fact that 'the City' had carried on as though austerity had never happened.
The People's Vote campaigners have nothing to apologise for as they were not responsible for the failings of government over the years, but they could embarrass Parliament into an apology: into saying 'sorry'.
- Sorry for the easy win of blaming the EU for things that were all the time within the control of the government
- Sorry for wasting time on Brexit when they should have been doing something about the issues which we really face, which would really improve people's lives (rather than pandering to a pampered, over-wealthy elite)
- Sorry that economic trickle-down has failed and agreeing to do something serious about limiting fat cat salaries and insultingly large bonuses (a commitment made by the PM when she took office but which has sunk without trace)
- Sorry that so many wealthy people were managing to avoid tax through the use of off-shore accounts when 'the people' were being screwed
- Sorry that salaries for the few had been allowed to mushroom way beyond anything realistic
- Sorry that austerity has been applied so unfairly
- Sorry for incentivising cost reduction: imagining that everything can be done to the same standards on less money, and enriching the wealthy on the proceeds
- Sorry that the social services system has been unable to cope and for managing them so inadequately with insensitive, unfair and ill-thought through procedures
- Sorry for constantly tinkering with, and under-funding vital public services like the NHS and Education
- Sorry that there has been a need for food banks to become a main source of nourishment for so many people
- Sorry that Westminster has so concentrated power in the country, cutting budgets for local authorities and seizing all their powers of decision-making
- Sorry that the party political system has so signally failed to provide a country at ease with itself or any sense of representation for more than half the population
No MP has ever wanted to say sorry. They will avoid questions, offer fake news, twist the truth: anything to avoid the need to say that they got something wrong. They believe they are required to be omniscient and omni-competent. To apologise or admit fault would lead inexorably to the need to resign. It would fail every test they falsely set themselves.
One can live in hope.
