Polly Toynbee: Political Journalist of the Year

Yes, she's been given another award:

Polly Toynbee was this week named political journalist of the year in the Public Affairs News awards.

Thank the Lord it wasn't for services to economics. In fact, I'd point to this one sentence in the article above that announcement as an example of exactly what is wrong with the political system of the country.

Society can't do without cleaners, carers, caterers and classroom assistants.

That our leading political journalist is so deeply ignorant of matters economic: or if you prefer, that her peers are so deeply ignorant that they'll give an award to someone who trots out such silliness.

For of course society can do without those people: reaching back deep into my own memory I'm pretty certain that only a few decades ago we didn't in fact have classroom assistants. We had teachers, yes, but they're now off doing the paperwork while the assistants keep the ankle-biters quiet.

Similarly, caterers are a newish invention: the restaurant, let alone the works canteen, didn't really come into British society until post WWII: the existence of the Cornish pasty is evidence of another way to feed the working man.

What she's missing is that we don't in fact need to have people paid to do those things: we need the roles filled, yes. We need the cleaning, caring, cooking and classrooming done, but society has existed at times with those being unpaid roles: thankfully we've gone beyond that. But much more than that, while we as I say want those roles filled, there's no long term reason why those roles need to be filled with people.

For technology changes, as you might have noticed. Such changes in technology wipe out roles: the computer has pretty much wiped out the occupation of typist (and thus might explain Polly's own move from such to columnist, neatly showing that not all technological advances are to the improvement of society), the ATM has certainly reduced the number of bank cashiers. Indeed, better ovens and stoves have reduced the number of caterers needed (to say nothing of the microwave) and I'd guarantee that there have even been technological advances in cleaning materials, thus reducing the labour required (imagine how many cleaners we would need if all were still using twigs bound to a pole as a brush, or the absence of vacuum cleaners?).

She's assuming that technology, and thus society, is static. Which it simply ain't.

No wonder our political world is in such a mess if this is what the political journalist of the year believes.

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