So class now returns to the political agenda – 30 years after Thatcher sharply widened class divisions, fatened the rich and trebled child poverty, and a decade after New Labour promised to halve child poverty but actually widened inequality still further and only reduced child poverty by a fifth. The depressing truth is that both parties have pursued a neoliberal economy of unfettered market forces, privatisation and deregulation, all of which sharply drive up inequality and both parties reject redistribution beyond minimalist tinkering. The inevitable result is that child poverty in Britain is now the fourth highest in the EU, the rich are now richer compared with the rest of the population than they have ever been since Edwardian times, 17 million people (more than a quarter of all households) remain on benefit, while chief executives of the FTSE 100 companies are now paid on average about 155 times more than the average paid worker. So class matters, yes, it matters dreadfully, it always has. And Harriet Harman is right to say today: “class overarches discrimination from gender race or disability”.

What is so ironic about this election is that the main political parties, both of which have sharply aggravated class divisions, are now focusing on social aspiration and social mobility, which their economic policies have blocked, as a main electoral theme. Both are falling over themselves to assure voters how much they will do to alleviate poverty and generate meritocracy, though noticeably not by redistribution which is certainly a necessary condition (even if not a sufficient one) for any fundamental change in social outcomes. New Labour has for a decade put the emphasis instead on reducing ‘social exclusion’ as though money was not a central part of it, whilst Cameron on behalf of the Tories has declared a week ago that what matters is not “the wealth of their upbringing but the warmth of their parenting”. How hugely convenient! We need strong and secure families (perhaps a married persons tax break to make it happen?), and we needn’t worry in this country about one of the biggest rich-poor divides in the Western world.
This febrile election campaign has so far been overblown with soft rhetoric. Time now for some hard doses of reality if is to get to grips with the real deep problems that afflict Britain today.

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