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As a farmer I understand and respect grass roots. They are our survival and our future. Whether sprouting in northern spring or emerging from tropical monsoon they herald the birth of new life and trigger that hope without which no sentient being would survive. From necessity to beauty they refresh the weary, stimulate the disappointed and enliven the desperate.

I also know what happens to them. They get dropped on from a great height, covered in – well, you supply the word – and trodden into the ground when heavyweights trample their trepid emergence. They are despised if prolific, castigated if sparse, rolled on by lovers, turned over by gravediggers. They survive all this only to wither when the rain ceases or is so heavy that they cannot breathe. Grass Roots do not have the best of existences.

There are a lot of them and they are stirring, making their opinions known, demanding better governance from their superiors and reasons why, not just orders. From Arab Spring to Cathedral Close, voices, sometimes moderate, sometimes violent, are being heard and refusing to shut up. When they are told “It all takes time” they reply “not as long as it will take if you don’t start now”.

The Grass Roots have been led, by those for whom they were persuaded to vote, to expect adequate but not excessive soft rain at the right time, enough to water their needs and a little more but not enough to destroy their lives. But, as always happens, they have thought that just a little extra would make them even happier. As we all know ‘more means worse’.

Dealing with Grass Roots is not a matter of answering them but of changing their expectations. Politicians are full of answers but very short of emotional intelligence or ability to handle themselves and other people. As politicians are also not economically educated – their training is in direct opposition to financial prudence – we are faced with emotionally immature, economic novices grappling with clever and single-minded bankers; they have no chance.

Underestimating the determination of the Grass Roots in this situation is dangerous. A few tanks, some corpses and several hospitals full of wounded will not calm the situation; it will exacerbate it. Repression works when ultimate power is in the hands of the repressor. You cannot repress everyone. Jobless, deprived, robbed, starving people have nothing to lose except their lives. They will sacrifice those to show that repression no longer works, that the Grass Root has finally flourished.

To deal with this we need look no further than Highgrove, Prince Charles’s home in England. Prince Charles is not, of course, allowed to talk to people about politics – no member of the Royal Family is. For all the stumbles he has made in his life, for all the tragedies he has had to endure, for all the material benefits he has had to cope with, Prince Charles has learnt to talk to the Grass Roots, gently, encouragingly. And they respond by growing into beautiful flowers for him. Is there a lesson here?

Grass Roots respond when their leaders are kinder and talk gently to them, perhaps?