Have you ever distributed sweets or toys among children? I have always found you have to be scrupulously fair or you won’t have a harmonious tea party or sleepover. If you gave one child 20 sweeties and the others only one each, there would be uproar because most children are sticklers for fairness.
When kids are only about 14 months old, they display spontaneous, unrewarded helping behaviour. By the time they are seven or eight, they like to share things and care for others’ wellbeing. Even babies are disturbed by injustice.
Isn’t that lovely? We start off caring and sharing. But then something goes horribly wrong. Altruism often seems to go down the plughole. Why? I can’t work it out. If a baby can share, and so can bonobos, why not a university vice-chancellor? It can’t be that difficult.
On telly last week, I saw the vice-chancellor of the University of Bath (who requested £2 expenses for biscuits) saying calmly that she was not embarrassed by her whacking great salary, even though non-managerial university staff have their pay rises capped at 1.1%.
I had a pointless little scream at the telly, punched the sofa and frightened the dog, as I find this sort of thing disturbing.
What do vice-chancellors do that makes them worth half the Royal Mint? OK, they are leaders of executive teams, but they are also meant to be symbolic leaders, with ideals. University bosses, along with others at the top of the pile, seem to be leading us into a grownup version of a children’s unfair tea party from hell.
What’s more, unfairness can cause stress, anxiety, poor health, shorter lives, higher infant mortality, obesity and crime – as well as lower scores in maths, reading and science, according to the Equality Trust. Which is not ideal.
And so I was thrilled to find that I am not alone in my boiling fury about unfairness. Alan Milburn, the government’s “mobility tsar” and three of his fellow commissioners are quitting because Theresa May is not making this country any fairer. Tell me something I don’t know.
• Michele Hanson is a Guardian columnist
