The voice of age and experience

The Bible said the meek shall inherit the earth, which only goes to show that you can’t believe everything you read in books.

When Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, it proved the meek are bottom of the list, and instead the world belongs to middle-aged, rich, white men.

They represent a tiny proportion of the world’s population, yet this group is responsible for most of what’s bad in the world, and far more than all the others put together.

And history tells us the same demographic has been wreaking havoc for centuries.

Today they are responsible for - and this is by no means the whole list - most of the world’s poverty and hunger, climate change and climate change denial, inhuman and inhumane exploitation of almost every kind, and they commit the majority of the world’s murder, rape and paedophilia.

Vladamir Putin: there’s another.

But they are not just at the top. Look at every level of government and management, and you will find yet more middle-aged, rich, white men calling the shots.

I call them the ultimate toxic brand.

Even when they pretend to be democrats and throw it open to the ballot box, it is in the full knowledge that the votes of middle-aged, rich, white men often tip the balance, and they are the most likely to vote according to self-interest.

Luckily for them, the toxic brand is immune from guilt or even suspicion.

They have a uniform that gives them an air of respectability many of them don’t deserve, and it is actually a far more sophisticated cloaking device than the less privileged realise. It consists of a suit and a tie, and shiny shoes.

Members of any other race, creed, nationality or religion are somehow expected to apologise or share the guilt if any single member of their (much larger) group steps out of line or dares to do something that the toxic brand don’t quite agree with.

But the toxic brand never apologise.

This may have something to do with them either owning the world’s media or being the best at using it to draw attention to other people’s supposed failings.

When we all woke up, last week, to the news that a coward had mown down hordes of innocent people in Las Vegas, there was a short pause in the news feed before it became clear who the gunman was.

Many would have assumed terrorism, even though that is far less likely than the toxic brand would have us believe.

Then it emerged that the gunman was yet another middle-aged, rich, white man, but rather than pointing out that he was another member of the pack, they quickly called him ‘a lone wolf’.

What I am more and more conscious of, these days, is that if there was an exclusive club for the toxic brand, they would be sending me application forms.

You see, I’m one of them: white, now middle-aged and rich.

My scruffy appearance may suggest I am not so rich, and alongside a government minister, say, who is the director of a handful of companies and still fiddles his expenses, I am, indeed, poor.

But compare me with the billions of less fortunate people in the world and I am absolutely loaded.

So how does membership of this elite, exclusive club make me feel?

I should be ecstatic and thankful to belong to the most privileged minority ever, but instead I am trying to find out how to disassociate myself from them.

Being a member of the club is the only thing worse than not being a member.