Early years Articles

In 1999, Labour pledged to eradicate child poverty by declaring that ‘no child be left behind’. Whilst in government, it was Labour’s determination to tackle inequality and promote social mobility that saw the creation of Sure Start and the establishment of a National...

The central argument of The Welfare Trait by Adam Perkins, an expert in the neurobiology of personality, is that the welfare state causes a proliferation of adults with ‘employment-resistant’ personalities, at great cost to society and the economy. The logic goes like...

Amid all the soul-searching and data-crunching of the past few weeks, one statistic haunts me more than any other. By a margin of 39 points, people who voted on 7 May said the Conservatives would manage the economy more effectively than Labour. That is not a small gap...

In 2000 the first Sure Start programme in Kent was developed in Millmead, an estate on the outskirts of Margate in Kent. Sure Start was a high-profile New Labour initiative which aimed to give young children living in deprived communities such as Millmead a better...