We have a government whose inner circle belives that some people are genetically predisposed to do better than others.

And that anyone can achieve success by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.

Both positions cannot be true.

Both legitimise peculiar forms of cruelty.

Both these positions deny the structural causes of inequality, exclusion and poverty.

You can see why the government's rich backers champion these beliefs.

That the government's special advisers feel no obligation to resolve this crashing contradiction shows how little intellectual challenge they have received from the media and Opposition, and how effective propaganda and distraction have been in dulling our critical faculties.

In combination, these contradictory beliefs are lethal. They allow the government to say:
There's nothing we can do to help people, and if they're left behind, it's their fault.
This deadly moral determinism sits at the ideological heart of Boris Johnson's government.

It goes without saying that the exponents of these beliefs do not practise what they preach.
They ensure their children succeed by sending them to private schools.
They ensure their friends succeed by giving them government contracts, without competition.

They seek to cut inheritance tax, to ensure that the children of the wealthy "succeed", whether or not they are "genetically superior", and whether or not they are hard working.
If they practised what they preached, they would set inheritance tax at 100%.

But while the poor must engage in a struggle for survival, to show which of them has merit, the rich must be relieved of such inconvenient competition.
Capitalism for the poor.
Socialism for the rich.