Of course, it's absurd that we trust the Tories with our

Hear the words of Frankie Boyle, sharp-tongued satirist and watcher of society, who declared: “Of course, it’s absurd that we trust the Tories with our day-to-day reality, as so many of them don’t really inhabit it. Why elect people to run our schools and hospitals who choose not to go to those schools and hospitals?” Though clothed in sarcasm, this statement reveals a deep and ancient truth about leadership and integrity: that rulers who do not share in the burdens of the people cannot be trusted to govern wisely.

The meaning strikes at the heart of representation. To trust leaders is to place in their hands the welfare of communities—the education of children, the healing of the sick, the protection of livelihoods. But Boyle warns of the danger when those entrusted live apart from the realities they are called to govern. Leaders who send their children to private schools and receive care in private hospitals may craft policies blind to the struggles of ordinary people. Thus, the gap between ruler and ruled becomes not only political but human, a breach of shared experience.

The origin of this sentiment lies in Britain’s long and often turbulent relationship with class and politics. The Tories, historically associated with wealth and privilege, have often been accused of governing from a distance, untouched by the very systems they oversee. Boyle, with the biting humor of a prophet clothed as a jester, calls out this contradiction: how can those who refuse to drink from the common well be trusted to guard its waters? His words are satire, but behind the laughter lies a sober challenge.

History has often proven his point. Consider Marie Antoinette, who, upon hearing of her people’s hunger, is said to have answered, “Let them eat cake.” Whether apocryphal or not, the phrase became a symbol of rulers so detached from the suffering of their subjects that they could not grasp their reality. Such detachment breeds resentment, rebellion, and collapse. In contrast, leaders who walk among their people—like Abraham Lincoln, born in a log cabin, who never forgot the struggles of ordinary Americans—earn loyalty because they govern not from towers of privilege but from the soil of shared hardship.

O children of tomorrow, learn from this: a leader’s worth is measured not by speeches or titles, but by their nearness to the life of the people. Beware those who rise above the common path yet forget it. Beware those who legislate for schools their own children will never enter, or for hospitals they will never need. For when rulers inhabit another world, their policies may become weapons against the very ones they are meant to serve.

Reflect also upon your own life. Leadership is not only for kings and parliaments—it exists in families, in workplaces, in communities. Do you live apart from those you guide? Do you demand of others what you would never endure yourself? Boyle’s words remind us all that true leadership flows from empathy, from the willingness to stand in the same lines, to bear the same burdens, to trust the same institutions you ask others to trust.

The lesson is clear: never entrust power to those who refuse to share in the reality of those they rule. Seek leaders who live among the people, who know their schools, their hospitals, their streets. And if you lead, make sure your feet walk the same earth as those who follow. For power without shared experience is empty, but power joined with empathy can build nations of justice.

So let Boyle’s satire echo as a warning: “Why elect people to run our schools and hospitals who choose not to go to those schools and hospitals?” May it remind all generations that leadership is not a throne above the people, but a seat among them—and that the truest rulers are those who live, suffer, and rejoice with those they serve.