Prior to the 1970s, if you hadn’t a university degree you could still get a good job which would give you enough income to support your family and live a comfortable life. Today things are very different. Globalisation has seen traditional production work shifted to other parts of the world chasing cheap labour, replacing it with a selection process which rewards only those with the right credentials, a university degree. Life has become a competition where the spoils go to the victors.

And the rest? Around 75%, are rejected and treated as failures by those who have won and as a result have the right credentials to prove it. They feel that they deserve their rewards for all the hard work they have put in. Is it any wonder society is split the way it is and people feel so angry? Is it any wonder many have turned away from their traditional values and voted with their middle finger to get one over on the establishment.

If we learn one thing from the COVID – 19 Pandemic, it should be the value of work. The value of those who work in our NHS and Care Services, those who have manned the checkouts at the supermarkets and delivered goods to our doors to name but a few.

When we finally beat this Pandemic, and beat it we will, we should not be tempted by the establishment, the privileged few “To get back to normal”,  as “normal” for the majority of us means struggling on low and even middle incomes, with job insecurity and extortionate housing costs whether we rent or buy, along with trying to come terms with the ever increasing inequality between the haves and have nots.

There needs to be a new order of things, one which recognises the dignity of work and rewards folk for their contribution to the common good.