Good old Alan Johnson. He’s proposed that an alternative to cutting spending is putting up taxes – well, duh, I mean, that is the alternative. But, don’t be worried about your bank balance: He doesn’t want to increase taxes on ordinary people.

That’s alright then. Hands up if you’re extraordinary? Anyone? There’s a bigger tax bill with your name written on it if you stick your hand up. No? Are you sure?

Ordinary. Normal. Only in the world of politics can someone boast about being ordinary, about how absolutely not-unusual they are, how completely lacking in any quality that makes them different from other people. In fact, only in the world of politics is it ever possible to be the same as other people at all. It’s not just appealing to the lowest common denominator – it’s appealing to a lowest common denominator that doesn’t actually exist. There is no normal. There is no ordinary. Everyone’s a freak. Being a freak, being weird – that’s as close to ‘normal’ as you can actually get.

Don’t they teach children that everyone’s different? Haven’t I been made to go on lots of ridiculous diversity training courses to hammer home the point that difference is good, that diversity makes us stronger?

I tend to believe it does, as it happens. (That doesn’t mean to say I support quota systems or affirmative action – the ‘problem’ of stereotyping and prejudice comes not regarding people as individuals. More collectivism is the last thing we need.) Labour, Alan Johnson’s party, swears blind that it does. They passed laws to that effect. Diversity is The Future. It is our best chance of survival – diversity and difference give us the best chance of finding the ideas and solutions that will get us through the problems round the corner.

It’s actually one of the rare point of agreement between myself and Labour, even if my personal creed dictates that it’s freedom for individuals to think for themselves and explore and push back boundaries that really matters.

So diversity is good, right? So why do these same politicians still invoke, “normal” as their highest selling point, their greatest virtue?

It’s almost like they’re saying one thing and doing another.

But, obviously, when Alan Johnson says “ordinary” what he’s really talking about is income and wealth. Diversity is great, but only on the stuff that doesn’t matter. The stuff that does substantively matter – income, wealth, intelligence, creativity, entrepreneurialism and the willingness and desire to take risks – these are differences to be crushed, fault lines to be exploited at the ballot box, social dividing lines for accumulating power.

It’s cynical and destructive, yes – and in my mind anti-humanity – but sadly when it comes to British politics such things are, well, quite ordinary.