Social mobility as a silver bullet…

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Rachael Maclean was one of the more low-key members of Boris Johnson’s cabinet up until her “get a better paying job” comments made headlines in May. In case those headlines were all you read, here is the context. Maclean, who at the time was a Minister at the Home Office with responsibility for Safeguarding, was interviewed as a part of a feature Sky News were running on the cost of living. Immediately after a conversation in the home of a …

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Is meritocracy dying?

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While on the treadmill a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a podcast delivered by the ‘intelligence squared’ where they interviewed Mark Mardell who has written a new book on the history of “meritocracy.” Originally, like the term ‘suffragette,’ it was a term of derision but since the 1950s the term has grown a following among left and right. Merit is a strange thing, as Mardell points out it can within a single lifetime propel someone into the very opposite, …

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What can Northern Ireland pragmatically do to decrease social inequality?

So yesterday began with the publication of a report from the OECD which found an unerring correlation between greater equality and greater economic growth. The finding is new, but not necessarily a surprise. The gap between rich and poor is at its highest level in most OECD countries in 30 years. Today, the richest 10% of the population in the OECD area earn 9.5 times more than the poorest 10%. By contrast, in the 1980s the ratio stood at 7:1. …

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After Haass: Risk of growing local disputes into toxic regional problems

I’ve got my iPhone beside me as I write. I’m writing on my laptop. But if I break off and have a spare moment later I can pick up this article on the iPhone and continue working. I use the little thing for calls, texting, taking photos, taking video, editing video, video conferencing, scanning articles, as an internet connection for my laptop, GPS navigation, and – of course – surfing the internet. I can use my fingerprint to unlock it, …

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Northern Ireland youth and the critical importance of mobility…

There’s an interesting longitudinal research just published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on the problems faced by 18 young people growing up in Northern Ireland. Each were interviewed up to seven times since the research began back in 1997. They’re all now aged 25 to 33. It tells a series of stories (without pretending it is the real and definitive story) about the first generation to grow up in a largely trouble free society. But it’s work in trying to …

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