Jump-starting social mobility

Your email address:
Friend's email address:

Gary Duncan has an important piece in this morning’s Times keying off Reform’s report on social mobility. As Gary writes,

“The realities behind Mr Brown's rhetoric on poverty are a lot less impressive than his boasts of being the best friend of the disadvantaged imply. The stark truth is that after a decade of Labour Government, Britain is a nation of greater income inequality, in which the plight of the very poor has worsened. True, Labour has succeeded in lifting half a million children out of poverty since 1998. Yet the Government's figures are based on a poverty line drawn at 60 per cent of average incomes. If it is placed, instead, at 40 per cent - officially defined as “severe poverty” - the picture looks much bleaker, with the numbers of children in such dire straits no lower than in 1997.”