David Cameron famously said "We are all in it togather" causing howls of derisive laughter from around the country. What do a bunch of Eton and Bullingdon Club public school boys know about being in it at all? Surely they are so insulated from real life by their enourmous inherited wealth and positions of privelege and influence that they can never feel the pinch of recession. Surely, the public thinks, they can sit in their ivory towers glugging Krug and scoffing caviar encrusted ryvitas without any concern for the welfare of the rest of us.
That's what we all think - and in fact those thoughts just distract us from what Dirk Gently called "the inter-connectedness of all things".
Last night I watched a rubbish documentary about how parcel delivery drivers just chuck your fragile packages around and generally don't give a shit. As somebody who shops online quite a bit I was appalled! Deliveries are a key part of my life strategy and I've always thought of delivery drivers as posties, which is a sacred vocation, like nurses or teachers. The parcel companies though think of them as cheap labour, interchangeable parts of a profit making venture. I don't know exactly how much they make but I bet it's not as much as even a back-bencher, never mind a cabinet minister, and the City Link drivers I've spoken to lately seem to be on a very tight schedule, so it's certainly not a cushy number. And all they do all day is deliver stuff from John Lewis and Amazon and Apple and Google to people with nicer houses than they have. No wonder stuff gets chucked around and looted.
And that's just one example of the dis-satisfaction that is creeping into Britain as the gap between rich and poor grows larger. The rich - who, let's face it are the ones pulling the levers - need to understand that this will ultimately have an impact on them, if every time you try and buy a coffee you get a sense of hatred and resentment it tends to spoil the experience.
You might hink that you are immune, but take heed of the parable of the parcel delivery guys, your world might tumble around your ears for reasons that you could never have thought of.
As dis-satisfaction gathers and grows it becomes a general feeling which infects every area of life, agression breeds more agression in an atmosphere of resentment, failure and fear. The boss kicks the worker who goes home and kicks the dog. We have the confrontation with Powergen and take it out on the guy in Currys, he takes it out on the barista in Starbucks.
David Cameron still has to live in the world, he still has to buy coffee - or have somebody get him a coffee, or somehow organise for the coffee to arrive and however he manages it, wouldn't he rather have it with a smile instead of a stabbing?