Perhaps when, in 1999, Labour pledged to halve child poverty by 2010 and eradicate it by 2020, the party leadership thought this grand aim would have been forgotten 11 years later.
Aren't public sector workers doing well? Private sector employees may have that impression after mulling over earnings figures released by the Office of National Statistics last week.
Seldom does the letters page of the Daily Telegraph carry words of praise for social workers.
David Cameron used Prime Minister's Question Time yesterday to flag the Conservative Party's policy on publishing serious case reviews in full - and left Gordon Brown accusing the leader of the opposition of being "isolated" from the experts.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence's likely decision to deny a new drug to NHS patients with rheumatoid arthritis has been described as a postcode lottery.
It was only a matter of time before the burka debate spread across La Manche. And so at the weekend UKIP, the United Kingdom Independence Party, seized its chance.
Boris Johnson beware: your nemesis in London's mayoral election in 2012 could turn out to be Asbo queen Louise Casey.
It is 22 years since that dismal piece of legislation, Section 28, was passed by a Conservative government to ban the "promotion" - whatever that was - of homosexuality in schools.
A little more is emerging about David Cameron's commitment to reducing social inequality, should his Conservative Party be elected to power this year. Yet his proposals, spelled out to the independent think tank Demos yesterday, seem incompatible with an interview he gave the BBC on Sunday.
If the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, is to be believed, the anger felt by many people regarding immigration is so great that violence could result.
The unofficial pre-general election campaign got under way this week with both Labour and the Conservatives targeting specific groups, suggesting that social care could have a more visible presence over the months ahead.
| Outside Left questions the thinking behind today’s social policy, with a sometimes wry, occasionally cynical, always straight-talking look at the political elite that shapes it, written by sub editor, Mike McNabb. |
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