Having no skin in the game

Why are do BBC presenters receive such extraordinarily generous salaries? Supposedly they are paid some kind of market rate, but surely any jobbing actor could do what they do.

A more convincing explanation is that a huge salary is used to haul them into a particular social class and nail them there for the duration. It ensures that they have no skin in the game when it comes to certain social and political trends which damage social classes below their cosmopolitan comfort zone. For the common good of course.

For example, relentless attempts to make COP26 seem relevant to real life are driven by those with virtually no skin in the game. They can afford the obvious stupidity as payment for a Malthusian perspective to offset what to them should be minor financial downsides. It may not turn out like that, but this is their narrative.

The expensive energy, the inevitable restrictions on mobility, holiday travel, air travel. The colder houses, unaffordable winter heating, the inevitable impact on low income families. The chattering classes have far less skin than most of us in these, more serious downsides.

They never had any skin in the immigration game either, only ever viewing it from a comfortable cosmopolitan perspective. Having no skin in the game there was never a motive to explore the legitimacy of other, sharper perspectives further down the social ladder. Neither is there a motive to consider the inner city violence, the erosion of a successful culture or even the rewriting of history.

They have no skin in the increasingly forlorn need to preserve free speech. Just the opposite – they have skin the censorship game. They benefit from restrictions on criticism and even language because their social class created a need for heavier censorship. For the common good of course.