MY boyfriend at university used to hand out copies of the Socialist Worker outside the library.

I remember someone older and, they thought, wiser telling me everyone’s a socialist in their youth. Until they start earning money and having children – after 40, everyone’s a Tory.

This, I did not believe.

Not that people might vote Tory. I didn’t know any of them, personally, but they must have been out there, of course. I didn’t believe that people would wholesale abandon their principles for the sake of simple personal gain.

A decade later and still, still, I’m hanging on to the hope that politicians will live by their beliefs. Am I too old, now, for this? Is shrinking optimism the price for growing in years?

I have, for some time, greatly admired Cat Boyd of the Socialist party RISE. She reminds me of me if I were a little braver. In a recent interview she talked about being able to buy her west end flat because of an inheritance from her grandmother.

I was deflated by this. Truly, thoroughly, let down. Here she is, a feisty young socialist with social equality at the forefront of her professed principles and… she supports inheritance. Well, she doesn’t support inheritance – she’s called for a 90 per cent tax rate on inheritance for the wealthiest. “End inherited wealth and privilege,” she tweeted. Which is a fine stance to take after benefitting from inherited wealth and privilege.

Boyd said she came into the money unexpectedly when living in a beetle-infested flat, giving money to a private landlord. The point, as a socialist, is to be one of the people. Not use unearned wealth to remove yourself from challenging situations such as those faced by the people.

We’re the children of baby boomers, the majority of whom have more money than they know what to do with. I know few of my peers who have managed to buy property without a lump sum handout from their parents. It isn’t the case that they wouldn’t get on the property ladder without support. The case is that the notion of starting small and working up has been long forgotten. The case is that people expect to start out in an upmarket postcode. They want what their parents have but without the decades of work first. It must be difficult to have the option of an easy in and reject it. The average man on the street I fully sympathise with. But a vocal socialist who wants my vote to help her create social equality? I have no sympathy there.

Political and personal identity are intertwined: if you forgo your political beliefs for personal comfort then who are you?

If you overlook another’s political hypocrisy then how north facing, really, is your moral compass?

The “Shy Tory” – those who confound opinion polls by claiming they’re on the left then mark their X in a right wing spot in the privacy of the polling booth – has become a trope because acting in political self interest is now deemed greedy and unseemly.

But how many people truly act within their principles? I am sure there are those critical of the tax avoidance detailed in the Panama Papers who work off the books. There are those who believe firmly in social equality but use unearned, inherited wealth to buy property. There are those who dislike the private school system but move to ensure a place at exclusively middle class state schools.

The problem is that everyone, like Dianne Abbot, can find a reason why they, themselves, uniquely are a special case.

For politicians, the unique excuse is that, politically, in order to move forward they must bring the electorate with them. Manifestos are such shifting sands because politicians are interested in votes as much as the welfare of voters – these two are inextricably linked. You can’t effect change on one without the other. Policies with their foundations set in morally firm ground are unlikely to appeal to voters who say they want equality but don't want to sacrifice anything for that end.

Abbott’s party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is the type of man who would appear to live by his principles. But he is derided for it. The electorate hates a hypocrite but, it turns out, they equally hate a man who refuses to act hypocritically.

But that’s politics.

Politicians, however. I want to hold them to a higher standard. I want to give my vote to someone who won’t let me down.

Perhaps political maturity is accepting hypocrisy. Perhaps, I'm afraid, it's time to get off the library steps.