‘We’ can’t know how the very poorest live

I’ve been conducting a straw poll. Using incidental encounters with people who don’t follow politics closely, I’m learning what ordinary voters do or don’t know or think of Rishi Sunak. Responses range between neutral and mildly positive. Beyond that, what do I get from respondents? (1) They really don’t know much about him; but (2) they do know he’s rich.

The problem for Mr Sunak is not so much that he’s known to be rich – of course he is – but that this is almost the only thing about him that has sunk in. Here in Britain the observation that a politician is rich is typically followed by the thought that this may ‘separate’ them from the lives and concerns of the ordinary voter. ‘If you haven’t lived it,’ we say, ‘how can you fully understand it?’