The personal statement made in the House of Lords on the13/9/2011 by Lord Mackay of Clashfern, shows how people who sit in the great chairs of power are completely detached from the reality of daily life of the average UK. Citizen. It just proves that the House of Lords is just an Ivory tower where the staircase has been removed in order to deprive common sense to have access to it.
In the first paragraph of the statement begins with the appropriate niceties of his position, as well as showing the direction it is likely to take;
“My Lords, I have great admiration for the Secretary of State and his ministers, not least for my noble friend who is the Minister in this House. I am delighted that they have tackled the difficulties of the welfare system and glad that, in principle, the noble baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, who has great expertise in this matter, has embraced that principle. However, there are of course many details in the application of that principle which demonstrate why it may have been wise in her day to have it in the “too difficult” section.”
It is possible from this section to ascertain a communication between two distinctive ivory towers, Lord Mackay’s one to Lady Hollis on the other end. The reference to the “too difficult section” may imply that he is looking down to the rest of the mortals participating in the debate. It is unseemly considering his title. The second paragraph continues to explain his thinking in the Bill;
“I intend to speak about a matter that is only marginally connected with the Bill. It depends primarily upon inherited legislation. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister recently roundly criticised people who were non-resident parents-he referred to them as “runaway dads”-and who simply refuse to face upto their responsibilities to their children, leaving single parents who, as the Prime Minister acknowledged,
“do a heroic job against all odds”,

to manage alone. Their plight is not new. In my early years as Lord Chancellor, now rather a long time ago, I received many calls for help from mothers who had courts orders for maintenance for their children but could not enforce those orders because they could not find the defendants.”
It is clear from this statement that the ivory tower’s windows are too high to enable him to look at what is happening at ground level. The “runaway dads” quote may be a semantic mistake, or a difficult euphemism to understand, a metaphor, or simply ignorance. A more adequate collocation could be used, for e.g. “chased-away dads” seems to be a more accurate lexis. The“heroic” catchphrase, in view of the recent riots, seems to be out of place completely. The single mother phenomenon is not solely caused by missing dads; in fact they are a fraction of the problem. The act which is mostly responsiblefor the inexistence of fathers in children's lives, is divorce goaded by greedy lawyers, insane judges, daft Laws, etc.
The use of hyperbolic language, e.g. “their plight is not new” is a very dangerous indeed because of the power he is shrouded in. Furthermore, with the current "wall of money" (Prime Ministers quote) that is thrown at them, it hardly qualifies as "plight" but more of a green pasture where to laze away their lives. The slogans, when used at masses level, do easily self-fulfil, talk about plight will only fulfil the profecy of victimhood. The examples of Marie Antoinette quote “the people do not have bread? Give them cake instead!”, which further were incensing the hungry French people and, is a historical, classic example of ruler's aloofness over matters relating to the ruled. Finally, he claims to have received many calls from helpless mothers unable to collect maintenance/menaces monies, as if chased away dads can accept further injury to their insults received from the family courts. His Lordship has not mention the vindictive nature of the mothers who deliberately deny the father his children.

Lords Hansard text for 13 Sep 201113 Sep 2011 (pt 0001)

NEVO