Friday 15 January 2010

Labour must stand for social mobility and social justice, says Brown

Gordon Brown, writing in Saturday's Guardian, says that Labour's mission must be to combine fairness and aspiration, arguing that social mobility and social justice must go together.

The Guardian reports that this implies making the 'middle class the electoral battleground'. The Times also reports on the Brown pitch to the middle.

While "proud of Labour's record in reducing poverty, improving public services and limiting inequality", Brown also writes that "we have also learnt that, in a globalised economy, the pressures toward increased inequality are immense. Pro­gressive governments have to swim hard against the tide to reduce poverty and social injustice".

Brown argues that a 'genuine meritocracy' must involve spreading opportunity across society.


Opportunity and reward cannot be hoarded at the top, and it is not enough to protect people at the bottom.

Our values demand a genuine meritocracy for all British people, and I want to set out how in the coming decade we can unleash the biggest wave of social mobility since the second world war – to spread opportunity across society and to realise the aspirations of all those on middle and modest incomes. Social mobility is not an alternative to social justice – it is modern social justice.


The theme of equality will be a central theme at the Fabian New Year Conference on Saturday, as previewed by Stuart White on Next Left today.

1 comment:

Silent Hunter said...

Funny though how the man who wrote a book on Courage hasn't had the courage to allow comments until the following morning.

This will be another of those Guardian articles closed to comments early to avoid Gordon being told in no uncertain terms just what a mendacious joke he is.

For him to pontificate about the poor when he has presided over a country where the gap between the rich and the poor has actually INCREASED and he has bailed out the greedy bankers who have rubbed our noses in our own financial difficulties by awarding themselves huge wadges of OUR money, given to them by a grateful PM.

It's beyond SICK!