The Sacred and the Used

We’ve all seen it – the misty-eyed tributes to “our veterans” and “the working man” trotted out whenever the right wants to feel virtuous without spending a penny. Both are worshipped as symbols, but treated like rubbish the moment the cameras stop rolling.

The veteran is paraded in his medals – wheeled out for Remembrance, applauded at football matches, wrapped in flags and sentiment. Then, come Monday, he’s back on the street queueing at the food bank while the same politicians who praised him vote down funding for veteran housing. The anger he feels is real, but it’s been redirected – twisted to serve people who see him not as a man, but as a weapon. Keep him furious and he’s useful. Calm him down, and he’s invisible.

It’s the same sleight of hand with the working man. That phrase used to mean something tangible – dignity through work, the backbone of a nation. Now it’s a costume. The right invokes him as “salt of the earth” while gutting every protection he once had. They sell him a fairytale of hard graft and honest pay, yet deliver zero-hours contracts and food-bank Britain. He’s told that immigrants stole his job, not that it was shipped overseas by the very party he votes for out of misplaced loyalty.

The trick is simple. You can’t exploit people who see clearly, so you feed them myths. Tell the veteran he’s been betrayed by “wokeness” rather than austerity. Tell the worker he’s a hero of tradition rather than a casualty of deregulation. Wrap them both in the Union Flag, call them “real Britain,” and they’ll march proudly behind the very people who broke their lives.

The truth is that neither the veteran nor the working man needs pity or slogans. They need respect – and that means fair wages, proper housing, mental health care, and a government that values people over pageantry.

Until then, the flag-wavers will keep their theatre going, shouting about patriotism while stepping neatly over the bodies of the sacred and the used.