A class apart: Politics has become a closed world

“There are unfortunately too many people in politics who just don’t get it; who just don’t understand what life on benefits would be like,” Lord O’Donnell, the former head of the Civil Service, has warned. The factual assumption behind this lament cannot be denied. The biographical backgrounds of today’s professional politicians are not representative of the public at large, and the number who have had any direct experience of life at the bottom of the social pile is indeed very smal