Justine Greening’s oft-proposed bromide to solve problems of public finances, growth and productivity through the removal of inequality of opportunity is no more than a soft-soap UK variant of the American dream (What’s the big idea that could win the Conservatives the next election? Social mobility, 12 May). In the US, so the argument goes, if you work hard you will make it. The corollary of course is that if (and probably when) you don’t make it, you didn’t work hard enough – it was your fault.
Without addressing the underlying structural problems of inequality – in health, housing, transport and education – any Tory panacea of equality of opportunity is simply a device to get a few strivers to the top of the pile, while leaving the structural inequalities still in place. If you make it, that’s great, and if you don’t, well you can’t complain as you had an equal chance to succeed.
