Some books are read once and then forgotten. Others are read once and remain with us. Animal Farm by George Orwell is one of those books that, despite being written decades ago, seems to speak to us every time we return to its pages.

Orwell did not simply write a story about animals on a farm. He wrote about human beings. He wrote about power. He wrote about how a revolution that begins with a dream of justice can end by creating a new system of oppression. He wrote about the danger that arises when those who are given power begin to believe that their power is more important than the truth.

Perhaps the most powerful lesson is this: not everyone who speaks in the name of the people is necessarily working for the people.

In Orwell's story, the animals were tired of injustice. They wanted a better life. They wanted dignity. They wanted what they produced not to remain entirely in the hands of others. They were inspired by a simple but profound idea: that life should be fair.

Is this not the essence of every politics that truly matters?

Politics should begin with the person who is suffering. With the elderly person who lives alone. With the family struggling to pay the rent. With the person who wants to work but remains poor. With the parent who does not know how the bills will be paid. With the person who has a home but no peace of mind. With the person who has hundreds of contacts on a phone but nobody beside them.

Politics, when it loses the human being, loses its soul.

In Animal Farm, the problem did not begin when the animals dreamed. The problem began when the dream slowly became a tool for power.

That should frighten us.

Because sometimes politics begins with a beautiful word: justice. Then justice becomes a slogan. The slogan becomes propaganda. Propaganda becomes a tool. And the tool becomes a weapon against anyone who holds a different opinion.

That is why we must always ask: justice for whom?

When we speak about housing, are we talking only about figures and schemes, or are we talking about the person who does not know where they will live?

When we speak about wages, are we talking only about statistics, or are we talking about a family that, at the end of the month, has to choose between paying the rent and buying what it needs?

When we speak about mental health, are we talking only about services, or are we talking about the person who wakes up every morning with a sense of emptiness?

And when we speak about loneliness, do we understand that a person can be surrounded by a hundred people and still feel completely alone?

These are the questions that must remain in front of us.

In Animal Farm, words slowly begin to change. Principles are interpreted according to whoever holds power. What seemed clear at the beginning becomes increasingly ambiguous. And when truth becomes ambiguous, power begins to win.

Here lies an enormous political lesson.

Democracy without truth is fragile.

If people do not have truthful information, they cannot make a genuinely free choice. If words are used to hide reality, politics becomes theatre. And if a politician begins to believe that the end justifies every means, then that politician has already begun to lose their moral compass.

The problem is not only who holds power. The problem is what power does to the person who holds it.

Power can make a person listen more, or listen less. It can make them more humble or more arrogant. It can make them see politics as service or as ownership.

And I believe politics should be service.

A politician should not be someone who climbs onto a pedestal and looks down at people from above. A politician should be someone who walks the streets, enters people's homes, listens to their stories, sees their pain and asks: What can I do to make your life a little better?

Because a country is not measured only by the wealth it produces.

It is also measured by the way it treats those who cannot give anything back.

How great is a society that looks at its most vulnerable and tells them: "You matter too"?

Perhaps this is the true meaning of social justice.

It is not about ensuring that everyone has exactly the same life. It is about ensuring that nobody is condemned to a life without dignity.

And here we return to Orwell.

The animals wanted to be free, but they did not understand that freedom requires institutions, checks, accountability and the courage to say no. Freedom cannot depend on the good character of a single leader.

Because today there may be a good leader.

Tomorrow there may be another.

That is why we need a system that limits power, not simply good people who happen to possess it.

True democracy does not mean that everyone agrees with you. True democracy means that someone can disagree with you and still have their rights respected.

Because opposition is not the enemy.

Criticism is not betrayal.

A question is not an attack.

And those who hold power must have the courage to listen even to what they do not want to hear.

Otherwise, we end up with a society where politicians listen only to those who agree with them. And that is the first step towards living inside a bubble of power.

The thing that frightens me most about Animal Farm is not simply that the animals end up in a worse situation. It is that, after a while, some of them begin to accept it as normal.

This is the greatest threat to any society.

Not only injustice.

But becoming accustomed to injustice.

When we begin saying, "That is how it has always been," we give injustice permission to remain.

When we begin saying, "Nothing will ever change," we remove the possibility of change.

When we begin believing that politics is all lies, we do a favour to those who want politics without accountability.

That is why we must continue to ask questions.

Continue to criticise.

Continue to listen.

Continue to hold power accountable.

And above all, we must remember why politics exists.

Not so that a few people can have more power.

But so that many people can have more dignity.

Animal Farm leaves us with a powerful warning: every revolution can lose its soul if it forgets why it began.

And every political movement can lose its soul if it forgets whom it is supposed to serve.

Therefore, every time we speak about politics, we should ask one simple but difficult question:

After everything we have said, after the manifestos, the speeches, the promises and the power - is the person at the bottom genuinely better off?

If the answer is yes, then politics has done its job.

If the answer is no, then we do not need more slogans.

We need more conscience.

We need more courage.

And perhaps, above all, we need to relearn what Orwell wanted to remind us of:

Power should never be the purpose of politics. The human being should be.

Ivan Bartolo MP

Shadow Minister for Social Policy, Family and Social Housing