With the Tories ‘aspiring’ to meet Labour’s pledge to end child poverty by 2020, the need to tackle the legacy of inequality and social exclusion inherited from the years of Thatcherite misrule is now one thing that all the main parties can agree on.
But, according to Narrowing the Gap, the final report of the Fabian’s Commission on Life Chances, it will take more than aspirations to close Britain’s poverty gap.
The report finds that, despite the steady progress Labour has made in bringing 700,000 children out of poverty, ‘in many cases the gap in life chances between disadvantaged children and their piers has failed to narrow significantly since 1997.’ Twenty-one per cent of all children in Britain still lived in poverty in 2003/2004, down four points from 25 per cent in 1996/1997.
The problem of persistent levels of child poverty is exacerbated by the low priority generally given to the issue of tackling poverty and inequality by the public. To counter this, the Fabians propose that the government adopt a ‘life chances’ approach.
This, they claim, would help clarify the debate about which equalities matter and why; offer a litmus test with which to assess different policy options; but, above all, enable the government to ‘go public’ with a vision of why it wants to eradicate child poverty and reduce inequality in general.
While the Tories may claim to share Labour’s aspirations for ending child poverty, however, they might be unwilling to adopt some of the Fabian’s more unashamedly statist methods.
Among the report’s recommendations are a ‘pregnancy premium’ on income support for pregnant women, an increase in overall benefits rates for children ‘at least in line with average earnings or faster’, and the adoption of a higher rate of income tax for top earners. The Fabians also recommend that tackling inequality be made the central theme of the 2007 comprehensive spending review.
You won’t find Cameron ‘aspiring’ to such radical remedies to his party’s legacy of social deprivation anytime soon.
Demos are looking for a new leader. After seven years at the helm of the organisation that he joined as a researcher in 1995, director Tom Bentley has announced that he is leaving and moving with his family to Australia.
Bentley came to Demos in its 1990s-halcyon days, when it was closely associated with the development of the third way and the re-branding of Britain as ‘Cool Britannia’. As the early idealism of the New Labour project faded, in turn Bentley attempted to steer Demos away from a narrow focus on government policy to encompass a broader set of political ideas and values.
Last year saw the relaunch of the thinktank under the heading ‘everyday democracy’, making it the organisation’s mission to put democracy ‘into practice by working with organisations in ways that make them more effective and legitimate’.
Some, however, took the relaunch as evidence that the once-influential thinktank had finally run out of ideas. Its recent suggestion that hairdressers should ‘be given a formal role in urban policymaking’ certainly added to that impression.
Will Demos discover the ‘leader, intellectual’ and ‘visionary’ they are looking for to lead the organisation into a new era? Interested candidates need not apply as the deadline for applications passed in April. On the advertised £70 to 80k-a-year salary, we hope the successful candidate lives up to Demos’ expectations.
It is good to see the Adam Smith Institute putting its entrepreneurial instincts into practice, and branching out from the market of ideas into street wear. ‘The new Adam Smith Institute hoodies … are now available,’ announces a post on the organisation’s increasingly bizarre blog in April.
The ASI has produced the fetching hoodies for The Next Generation, a networking group for young free-marketeers. ‘They feature the ASI colours of deep blue, light blue and white, and with the new TNG logo embroidered (not printed) across the chest,’ the Institute assures. ‘They are not guaranteed to get you into shopping malls, but they will attract admiring looks as the ultimate in street-cred thinktank wear.’