Progress? How can social justice be in decline?

How do we come to 2015, almost 7 decades since the UN Declaration on Human Rights, 6 since the European Convention, 5 since the Race Relations Act and 4 since the Sex Discrimination Act and yet find an apparent upsurge in behaviours associated with blind prejudice, both in Government and wider society?

The media regularly reports incidents of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Feminism has had to be re-awakened in the face of everyday sexism. Politics itself is being fought out in a pitched battle couched in barely-masked xenophobia, if not racism. The current Government is all too ready to stereotype and demonise millions of its own electorate, simply because they are less fortunate: old, young, poor, temporarily workless or disabled.

This has surely happened gradually and through a creeping change in social attitudes, coinciding with the rise and rise of the Market as the driver of what passes for a political philosophy. If this is true, reversing the trend will also take time, assuming there is the will to do so. Deliberate leadership will be required. So is this where a Labour Government can come in; and if so, what could it actually do to pump-prime the re-establishment of a values-driven polity?

First must come implementation of legislation already in place, led by equal pay for women. There can be no excuse for passing laws and failing to enforce them. This should be followed by mandatory gender equality targets for Parliament, local authorities and boardrooms.

Secondly, political and media influencers must be challenged in their vicious use of false syllogisms about particular groups, drawing generalisations from extreme instances. Could there be a case here for an Office for Data Responsibility?

Third, no part of society, whether through power, wealth or celebrity should be above the discrimination laws. All prejudice should be challenged and held to account and those uncovering it protected from any backlash.

Fourth, divisive or privileged institutions should be banned, including private and faith schools. Workplace childcare should be mandatory for major employers, private as well as public, to allow parents regardless of gender to pursue careers.

Labour must preach - and deliver - social justice or it is nothing.

Is it any wonder people are fed up with politics as it is practised?

Children are brought up from their very earliest years to be polite. This includes speaking respectfully to and about others. School reinforces this principle and workplaces only work effectively by putting it into practice. Society has learned over time that discrimination against people on the grounds of who they are rather than what they do or say is a form of ill-manners deleterious to social cohesion. It is not rude to say someone is gay, black, Muslim, foreign or female; but it is anti-social to treat these as factors on which to base attitudes or behaviour. We know this so clearly that laws have been put in place to ensure compliance.
Even without laws, common sense says that manners are a lubricant of a peaceful society. If someone is rude or offensive to another, it is not surprising if this creates tension or reaction which in turn may lead on to aggression or worse. Recognising this, Parliament set in place rules for behaviour and language which the Speaker enforces. But take the same body of people away from the discipline of the House and they act like unruly children. MPs in particular - often egged on by journalists in search of a story - have become the very exemplars of how not to behave in a civil society.

Name-calling by the very highest in the land sets the sort of example which damages the efforts at upbringing invested in those who should be admiring them. This is made even worse when these same supposed leaders use their rhetorical platform to belittle not just their political opponents but the very voters whom they are supposed to represent. The demonization of the weak by the strong shows the corrupting effect of power in its worst light and devalues politics.

Leaders in society have a far greater duty to behave as we all should, just because they have set themselves up as leaders. Yet in politics today, some of these may be the very cause of their own demise, as the people whose support they crave find that politicians' standards of behaviour are infuriating, belittle their messages and leave them looking to other ways of expressing their values. This may be doing considerable harm to our country. They should look at themselves before criticising others.