Blairite former cabinet minister Alan Milburn is set to join the coalition government as its "social mobility tsar" – to the consternation within his own party

Alan Milburn, who will lead a government drive to boost social mobility, said a working-class child growing up in Britain today has less chance of reaching the Cabinet than he did.

Social mobility is emotive and I imagine that Alan Milburn is livid that his report was ignored by its commissioners, the government. That it was swept under the carpet is unsurprising, for Milburn’s conclusion confirms Labour’s failure: ‘Social mobility has slowed down in our country. Birth, not worth, has become more and more a determinant of people's life chances.’ ...

Alan Milburn the government's social mobility tsar is to launch a strong attack on ministers' failures to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds into universities and the professions.

Lord Prescott and Simon Hughes discuss former Cabinet minister Alan Milburn's decision to accept a role as social mobility tsar to the coalition government.

Alan Milburn's Social Mobility Commission is about to get under way, so renewed complaints about the "class war" will soon be heard. In fact, attempts to increase social mobility are an endorsement, not a rejection, of the class system. They aim to allow more and different people to move up a basically unchanged social hierarchy. Clearly, increased mobility is desirable. But it ought to be no...

Telegraph View Alan Milburn is right to say that schools offer the best hope of improving social mobility.

Former Labour cabinet minister Alan Milburn is to make a surprise return to frontline politics as an independent reviewer on social mobility for the new coalition Government.

There's been a lot of garbage spoken about social mobility in the past few days - almost all of it from the government.  But if Tories need reminding that Alan Milburn - the new social mobility czar - gets it, then they should read his interview with Alice Thomson and Rachel Sylvester in today's Times.  Here's one particularly striking paragraph: "Labour's arch-m...

Alan Milburn has been made the Czar of the greasy pole. It is time more was done to promote social mobility in Britain. My advice to Alan is simple. Do not think the great Universities or the Armed Services want to recruit preponderantly