Let’s face it; politicians tend not to be the sharpest knives in the box. They are more comfortable with election-winning slogans than with ideas and policies that improve lives. If in doubt, revisit the Prime Minister’s five pledges and you’ll get the idea. They resemble the Bulls**t Bingo we used to play at conferences and training courses.

They also like to draw on fashionable buzz words and expressions. Nowadays, “being pragmatic,” is all the rage. Sir Keir Starmer for example, believes pragmatism offers the shortest route to Number 10. Yes, we all understand tough choices must be made and policies need to be realistic, practical, and affordable.

What’s harder to accept is Sir Keir’s failure to underpin his pragmatism with vision, ambition, principle, or morality. Failing to commit to the abolition of tuition fees in England and the two-child benefit cap, for example. I may be doing him a disservice, but he seems content to track what passes for Tory policy. If that’s the case, there’s little chance he’ll shepherd many strayed Labour voters like me back to the fold.

In a nutshell, Sir Keir’s pragmatism reveals what’s gone wrong with present day politics and government. There’s no overarching commitment to fairness. Levelling up is little more than a smoke screen. Indeed, today’s society is less fair than it was in the tough, post-war years. The gap between the haves and have-nots is steadily widening. Pragmatism has superseded the vision of a fairer and better life for everyone. I try to give Holyrood the benefit of the doubt, ascribing its failings to incompetence rather than malice. Pragmatism at Westminster on the other hand, is characterised by unprincipled self-interest, personal advancement, and enrichment.

Pragmatism doesn’t necessarily herald a new dark age, but as a society, we’re going backwards. As author and playwright Alan Bennett puts it, “One only has to stand still to become a radical.” Political life and those engaged in it have become increasingly repellent. For the pragmatist, cost and profit are the only yardsticks against which ideas and institutions can be judged.

At the heart of pragmatism lies the intention to roll back, or more accurately, roll over the state. Various right-leaning “think tanks” make it their mission to denigrate the state and the safety net it provides. Cue sneering references to the “nanny state.” Sir (Eh?) Jacob Rees Mogg will know more about the nanny state than most.

During a longish life, I have felt nothing but gratitude towards the state. At various times, it has housed and educated me. At present, it’s keeping me alive. Unsurprisingly, I find the events of the past 40 years to be extraordinarily painful. In particular, the deliberate and systematic stripping the nation of its assets and erosion of the welfare state. We are witnessing the dismantling of what was painstakingly built over 80 years.

Although we are the rightful owners, our assets have been sold from under us. Short-sighted pragmatism has delivered utilities, railways, and natural resources into the clutches of private, non-accountable corporations. The private sector has been released from the moral obligations and benevolent intentions formerly assumed by the state. As a result, English water companies make massive profits, while pumping raw sewage into rivers. Energy companies make billions while the vulnerable freeze.

The Tories always surprise you when you think they have picked the bones of the state clean. There’s little doubt the NHS is already in their sights. If we let that happen, it will represent the biggest betrayal of the aspirations and sacrifices of the unselfish generation, our parents and grandparents.

Sir Keir’s pragmatism will never tackle the regressive meanness and unfairness that dominates national political discourse. He should reflect on how his most illustrious predecessor, Clement Attlee, tackled the enormous problems facing a near bankrupt country in 1945. Out of the ruins came a million new homes, education reform, the welfare state and, above all, the NHS. I’m not sure how he did it, but sure as hell, it wasn’t through being pragmatic.