If wishes were horses.....

Rwanda is safe. The slave trade didn't contribute to British wealth. Not teaching children about their bodies and sex until they are 9 years old doesn’t expose them to greater harm as a consequence of their ignorance.

Over the last few months I have seen lots of people in the public realm indulging in fantasy thinking. They seem to be having a blast in their make believe worlds so I thought that I would give it a go too.?

Here are my 10 wishes for an alternative reality:

1 - Women are free of the shackles of misogyny. We can go out when, where and dressed how we want free of others projecting their misperceptions and hatred on us.? Just imagine…that early morning run that I want to do? No problem that it’s still dark and the roads are desolate - I feel safe.? Within the workplace, the gender pay gap, 14.5% according to PwC, no longer exists. It’s gone! Women are not trapped in low paying jobs and our brilliance is allowed to shine bright.

2 - The social contract has been reestablished and hope restored for young people.? Hard work does pay.?

3 - And so does the government.? Maintenance loans that currently drag behind inflation have been done away with. Instead maintenance grants, as advocated for by the Sutton Trust? have returned meaning it’s no longer the case that 62% of students spend less than the minimum ￡37 a week on food needed for essential food items.??

4 - Our green and pleasant land would boast more housing making the dream of affordable home ownership no longer the ring-fenced preserve of the relative few.?

5 - There would never be a week when the Sunday Times Rich List revealed that the UK has 165 billionaires yet the Trussell Trust announced that the number of emergency food parcels handed out across the UK in a single year has reached its highest level, at more than three million.

6 - We dodged the Brexit bullet.?

7 - Empathy has returned to discussions, replacing the binary entrenched views that take no account of the nuance and complexities of life.?

8 - It feels like the summer of 2012 when we hosted the Olympics.? Remember that?? Society is happy and the atmosphere is joyous.?

9 - We’ve addressed the climate emergency.

10 - With Insight Education would not need to exist as society hasn’t been built around the stupidity of?impeding someone’s potential based on the amount of melanin in their skin.