What better way to unleash aspirations than growing the green economy? No doubt Alan Milburn is right when he says that, “Too many able children from average income and middle class families are losing out in the race for professional jobs.”

But this isn’t just about the journey from council house to cabinet that Milburn comments on self-referentially in his Introduction to Unleashing Aspiration. As Brendan remarked yesterday, “The Government must also look at where new jobs are being created – such as green manufacturing – and ensure these are not affected by the same elitism that has dogged professions like medicine and law.”  Read more »

   Filed under: Environment, Social mobility | 1 Comment »

The BBC is reporting that the Prime Minister is to

say Labour will create “more middle class jobs than ever before” and the party represents the “mainstream majority”. And he will suggest middle class voters would suffer disproportionately under Tory plans to cut public spending. In the past, Mr Brown’s opponents have accused him of waging a class war.

But on the radio coverage it is also reported that allied to this is a call by Lord Mandelson for the 50p top rate tax to be lifted as soon as possible.

The media and politicians of all parties are very confused by class. In a common-sense world where words mean what they are meant to, middle would mean half way between top and bottom. That puts someone middle class on about £21,000 a year. Indeed this is what US politicians mean by middle class – the great mass of working joes and joannas who are not poor but earn well short of what we would call the professional middle classes. Read more »

   Filed under: Inequality, Middle Britain, Social mobility, Tax | 1 Comment »

Earlier this week David Cameron told us that the Conservative Party was committed to to “fight for the poorest“, and that he wants every child to have the same opportunities that were afforded to him. He is concerned about the problems of “poverty, crime, addiction, failing schools, sink estates, broken homes.” And at a conference fringe Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions) reportedly informed attendees that the Conservatives would be focused on dealing with “the root causes of poverty in a rigorous ways”. What does this mean? Read more »

   Filed under: Child poverty, Social mobility, Welfare | Comments Off

Michael Portillo’s article in last Sunday’s Times is in agreement with Charles Murray’s belief that welfare benefits create a dependent underclass. Portillo tells us that:

We ought not to be handing out benefits as a matter of right. They should help people through misfortunes, not subsidise slobbery. They should go to the deserving, not the undeserving. They should pull people up, not push them down….perhaps, at least, we ought to assume that fit young people are not entitled to anything. If a few young men from sink estates are not heroes in Afghanistan, why should we presume that all the others are capable of nothing at all

Only last week the Conservatives gave us a deeply misleading analysis of unemployment under Labour, and Chris Grayling implied that preventing people from ‘building a life sitting at home on benefits’ would improve employment rates. This is an argument against state intervention to tackle rapidly rising unemployment and in favour blaming unemployed people for being too lazy and feckless to get a job.We are seeing the start of a deeply regressive and offensive attack on people who are living in poverty. Read more »

   Filed under: Inequality, Labour market, Politics, Recession, Social mobility | 3 Comments »

The Guardian deserves much praise for Polly Curtis’s story today finding that 50% of private school pupils get A grades in their A levels. Polly writes that this is:

“prompting claims that attempts to break the middle-class stranglehold on entry to higher education have failed this year.” (our emphasis).

But going to private school does not put you in the middle of anything. Read more »

   Filed under: Inequality, Media, Middle Britain, Social mobility | 7 Comments »

The BBC’s flagship radio news programme Today has had a couple of interesting pieces on happiness in the last couple of days, including a report from Denmark, which regularly tops polls as the happiest place in Europe. They included a clip of David Cameron’s call for more consideration of general well-being than gross domestic product. Much of the modern interest in this flows from Richard Layard’s book Happiness in the UK and the positive psychology movement in the USA  spearheaded by Martin Seligman. Of course happiness has its critics too. Should there be a trade union perspective?

Read more »

   Filed under: Employers, Inequality, Skills, Social mobility | 3 Comments »

This week the Government has made a new and welcome commitment to social mobility. This is a necessary, but far from sufficient, condition for a fairer and more equal society. Social mobility is a progressive idea, but it can also be used to justify inequality.

This is what often happens in the USA. The American Dream says that anyone can get to the top through hard work, particularly by applying physical effort to their footwear. Of course it’s largely a myth, but it’s powerful enough to have sidelined discussion of the extreme inequalities that blight the US, though that may well now change.

Of course that is not the intent of those who have written the White Paper – and in any case all the evidence shows that societies that are genuinely socially mobile are far more equal than the UK is today – even after the many worthwhile initiatives since 1997.

So we can really achieve significantly better social mobility by building a more equal society. What can government do to achieve this? Read more »

   Filed under: Recession, Social mobility, Tax | 5 Comments »

The Independent Commission on Social Mobility (established by the Liberal Democrats, but with independent membership, chaired by Martin Narey of Barnardo’s and written by Di McNeish) also published its findings this week. Its final report provides an alternative analysis for how we can achieve a more socially mobile society.

Key findings include a recognition that inequality leads to a lack of social mobility and that the policy solutions which will improve opportunities for those facing the greatest disadvantage are those which will reduce poverty. Read more »

   Filed under: Inequality, Social mobility | Comments Off

The opening sentence in the Prime Minister’s foreword to the Social Mobility White Paper stresses that the new global economy requires an even greater investment in education and skills to support many more citizens to achieve their full potential. Crudely put, this argues that it is no longer possible for governments to tackle barriers to social mobility simply by improving levels of social protection.

Fulfilling the potential of each and every citizen in the new global economy is writ large throughout the document and a quick word search finds 72 instances of the word potential.  Interestingly, the word inequality is only cited seven times!  But for much more on the relationship between social mobility and inequality – and the current political debate – see the two incisive posts today by Richard and Nicola.

The focus on further reforms to education and skills as the answer to driving up social mobility dominates the White Paper. The bulk of the document is dedicated to the four key ‘learning phases’ that can have a significant impact on advancing social mobility – early learning and childcare, schools, immediate post-school destinations, and lifelong learning in the workplace. Read more »

   Filed under: Skills, Social mobility | Comments Off

As Nicola says, today’s social mobility White Paper has many good policies, but the more equal a society the more socially mobile it tends to be.

But there has always been a political trend that sees social mobility (or equality of opportunity as it used to be known) as a substitute for equality.

Read more »

   Filed under: Inequality, Social mobility | 1 Comment »