I am not political.
That is not to say, I don't pay attention to politics and certainly not to say I don't vote but I am not allied to any colour of politics or a member of any political party.
I am from shipbuilding.
My grandfather worked with the Riveters on the shipyards of the River Clyde.
He had a cleft lip and palate.
He was really, really poor and they had a hard life.
They were brought up in the reddest of red areas like arterial blood red, everything there was labour.
My mum and dad worked their way out of poverty.
My dad was a motor mechanic and my mum worked as a legal secretary in the middle of Thatcher's Britain.
They owned their own house and one of the first people in their family ever to do so and they cut their own grass and mended the roof.
They moved away from deep dark red, closer to the middle.
I was the first person in my family to graduate from university.
I took advantage of my mum and dad's extraordinarily hard work to catapult myself towards the middle or upper middle class.
My children live a life of privilege, unimaginable to my grandfather and grandmother.
So, what's the point of that and who cares?
When new labour was in power when Tony Blair was taking the world by storm as a ‘trendy politician’ they talked about the term meritocracy.
You can read about it here.
Meritocracy was described by the Ancient Greeks and probably originated in Asia.
In essence, it means that people rise to positions of authority within a society on merit, not due to their birth.
In principle, it's the opposite of a monarchy.
Once upon a time though, when Blair was trying to explain what meritocracy was or at least what he thought it was, he created an equation (I think it was him, but I remember it vividly being spoken about).
The equation went - intelligence + effort = success.
I was struck by that as being the most sensible thing in politics that I had ever heard.
People who are super intelligent and lucky enough to be so can game things a bit and work less hard and that's probably right because intelligence is one of the most important things we have as human beings to move us forwards (if we use it correctly).
On the other hand, though, someone with less intelligence (that would be me) is able to work hard and still make a success for themselves in that society.
The other thing is though, the real kicker, is that in a truly meritocratic society, inheritance tax is 100%.
That means that when we die, all of our money goes back into the system to help fuel the equation for the intelligent people, but more for the people who work hard.
I think we all believe that everyone in our society should have an equal chance of success.
I know the world is not entirely like that, but we have to think of some way to try to get to the point where people have a better chance.
Blog Post Number - 3408