The Lib Dem website reports that the party’s independent commission on social mobility - set up by Nick Clegg the day after he was elected leader - has published its full report: The Independent Social Mobility Commission, set up by Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg and chaired by Barnardo’s Chief Executive Martin Narey, has found that

In its Social Mobility strategy launched last April, the government made clear the dual priorities shaping its agenda: “Tackling the financial deficit is the Coalition’s most immediate task. But tackling the opportunity deficit – creating an open, socially mobile society – is our guiding purpose.” These are strong words indeed, marking an unequivocal commitment to

This week the Government has made a new and welcome commitment to social mobility. This is a necessary, but far from sufficient, condition for a fairer and more equal society. Social mobility is a progressive idea, but it can also be used to justify inequality. This is what often happens in the...

“A fair society is not one in which money is simply transferred by the central state from one group to another,” For that is a good description of what many social democrats do consider a fair society.

In this article , Sunder Katwala points out that social mobility fell under Thatcher. Social mobility was much higher among those born in 1958, who came of age in the Seventies, than those born in 1970. If a society is more unequal, it is harder for people at the bottom to jump up to the top than it is in a more egalitarian society where gradations and differentials are less steep.

Worth checking the series of short perspectives from different authors on the future of social democracy being run by Social Europe Journal, in partnership with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. This debate follows the “Good society”, a paper by Jon Cruddas MP and Andrea Nahles from the SPD. There are some contributions from people familiar to the

To many, social media seems the ideal way for government – especially local government –  to engage in more dialogue with communities in a way that is low cost, time-efficient and allows a two way (or indeed a multidirectional) relationship. But how many normal people follow their council on Twitter? Research done by the LGiU

One of the most insidious manifestations of the Blair years, and of European social democracy in general, has been the increased emphasis on social mobility rather than social justice as the measure of a healthy society. Its effect in this country has been the removal of a key plank of Labour’s philosophical identity as a party

Despite the common overall aims shared by liberalism and social democracy, and the way liberals and social democrats can work together in many cases, they remain, at their core, incompatable. This incompatability is due to differing views of society and power. For liberals the spontaneous order of society is to be celebrated, the state should not interfere

Society - broken or not? Looks like someone can’t make up their minds: Cameron retreats from his claim that Britain has a ‘broken’ society (Independent) BBC must help to heal the broken society, say Tories