What is the real goal of Labour’s ‘social mobility’ policy – and what SHOULD it be?
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I’ve been drawn back to my article about Labour’s social mobility vacuum, as a nagging question came into focus in my mind: why seek social mobility at all?
Some people won’t be able to move up the class system because they don’t have the brainpower or skills, but that should not disqualify them from being able to live a decent standard of life.
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Also – and this ties in with what was being said before: a government cannot say it is improving social mobility if it doesn’t improve physical mobility – like providing public transport that will get people to places where they can improve their life chances, such as colleges.
The fixation on social mobility itself deserves interrogation, because it quietly smuggles in an assumption that is rarely challenged: that the goal of society is to move people up in the established hierarchy, rather than to ensure everyone can live well within it.
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Universal Credit doesn’t boost workers – it subsidises Tesco
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I saw this on social media, on Christmas morning (and it really brought me down to Earth with a bang):
“Tesco makes nearly £4bn profit.
“Nearly 50% of its workforce are on Universal Credit, receiving about £600m a year.
“Why isn’t Tesco paying?”
It isn’t paying because it is merrily cost-shifting: Tesco keeps its wage bill down by relying on the state to make up the difference.
The result is that profits are privatised while labour costs are socialised.
One would have expected a Labour government to oppose that.
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You see, if a large share of Tesco’s workforce is on Universal Credit, then those jobs are not economically self-supporting. The public purse is effectively subsidising Tesco’s labour model.
It creates a particularly nasty illusion: by using large numbers of part-time and insecure contracts, Tesco gets to say it “employs hundreds of thousands of people”, while the government gets to boast about lower headline unemployment.
But that doesn’t mean fewer people are being supported by the state. It just means they’re being supported while working, instead of while officially unemployed.
From a public finance perspective, that distinction is almost meaningless.
If someone is working 16–24 hours a week for Tesco and still needs Universal Credit to survive, the Treasury is still paying out. The only difference is that Tesco gets cheap labour and the government gets nicer statistics.
That’s why the claim that “work is the best route out of poverty” collapses here.
For a large chunk of Tesco’s workforce, work is not a route out of poverty at all; it’s simply a condition attached to continued state support.
This also explains why there is no internal incentive for Tesco to improve pay and conditions:
- If wages are too low, the state steps in.
- If hours are too short, the state steps in.
- If contracts are insecure, the state steps in.
From Tesco’s point of view, why change anything? The costs of insecurity are externalised onto taxpayers.
Moral arguments alone won’t shift this. But there are at least three ways a government could respond if it chose to confront this honestly.
First, it could link in-work benefits to employer behaviour: if a company employs large numbers of people who require Universal Credit top-ups, that should trigger scrutiny or additional employer contributions.
In effect, if the state is subsidising your wage bill, you help fund that subsidy.
Second, it could incentivise full-time, secure contracts directly. For example, the government could reduce employer National Insurance contributions for firms that move workers from part-time to full-time roles with predictable hours and wages above a living income threshold.
At the moment, flexibility is rewarded; stability is not.
Third, and this is the part that governments avoid like the Plague, it could publish the full cost of corporate low pay.
This would not just include “how many people are in work”, but:
- how many working people are on Universal Credit,
- which employers account for the largest share, and
- how much each major firm’s workforce costs the public purse.
Frame it that way, and the question, “why isn’t Tesco paying?” becomes unavoidable.
It demonstrates that, right now, Tesco isn’t paying the full cost of its labour.
You are.
The political sting is this: if many of those part-time workers would prefer full-time jobs, then the current system isn’t just inefficient — it’s actively maintaining financial precarity to protect corporate margins and flattering government statistics.
That makes this not just an economic failure, but a democratic one.
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Government use of ‘influencers’ is replacing informed scrutiny with political marketing
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Information on the amount of money spent hiring social media influencers to promote their policies has been provided by some government departments – and you may want to know why they’re spending a million pounds on indoctrinating the young.
According to The Guardian, “More than half a million pounds has been spent since 2024 on using social media influencers to promote UK government campaigns on subjects ranging from the environment to welfare.
“The spending has included hiring 215 influencers since 2024, of which there were 126 in 2025 – an increase on the 89 hired in 2024 – and is seen as an attempt to use platforms such as TikTok to reach younger people.
“Among the branches of government that provided figures after a freedom of information request, the largest amount of spending was by the Department for Education, which spent £350,000 since 2024. It used 53 influencers this year, compared with 26 in the previous one.
“The Home Office, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence, and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) were among the departments using the most paid-for social media influencers to promote their work since 2024.
“The figures were released in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act by a public relations agency, Tangerine, which said the government was scrambling for the attention of “young and apathetic voters”. Most departments refused to give information, citing “commercial reasons.”
“To critics the model is a way of avoiding serious scrutiny of controversial policy in favour of softball questions from interviewers with little grasp of crunchy technical details.”
This is not civic education in any meaningful sense.
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Civic education is pluralistic, contested and explanatory: it shows how decisions are made, what the arguments for and against are, and who is affected.
Instead Keir Starmer and his government are funding strategic political marketing, delivered through intermediaries whose credibility derives precisely from not being perceived as political actors.
That distinction matters.
When ministers appear before journalists, even hostile or limited ones, they face an expectation of challenge, contradiction and follow-up. Influencer-led communication removes that friction.
The content is curated, the framing is controlled, and the questions – if there are any – are negotiated in advance.
This is not brainwashing in the cartoon sense, but it is narrative management designed to bypass scrutiny while borrowing trust from figures who did not earn that trust through political expertise.
Calling it “engagement” stretches the word beyond usefulness.
It isn’t quite indoctrination either; the more accurate term is asymmetric persuasion.
Young or disengaged audiences are not being invited into a political conversation; they are being presented with pre-filtered interpretations of policy, delivered by people they already like, in environments optimised for emotional resonance rather than critical evaluation.
The power imbalance is structural: the government has money, data and message discipline; the audience has scroll fatigue and limited context.
That does not create informed participation. It creates impression formation.
The choice of influencers is also revealing. Most of those named are not apolitical lifestyle creators with mass reach among disengaged youth. They fall into three broad categories:
First, “explainers” and personal finance figures – people like Mr MoneyJar or Abi Foster – whose audiences are already at least semi-engaged and information-seeking.
These are not politically indifferent viewers stumbling into democracy; they are people who already care about money, policy or public services.
Second, issue-adjacent campaigners such as Mother Pukka, whose following is politically aware and demographically narrow.
Her audience is not disengaged; it is largely composed of socially liberal, policy-literate parents already inclined to scrutinise childcare and education.
Third, niche or professional influencers used for recruitment drives – prison officers, magistrates, defence roles.
That is advertising, not engagement, and it has nothing to do with democratic participation.
Notice who is not prominent: large-scale entertainment creators, gaming streamers, comedy skit accounts, or influencers whose audiences are genuinely detached from politics.
Either the government cannot reach them, or it knows that overt political messaging would provoke backlash and distrust.
That brings us to the most telling detail in the Guardian piece: most departments refused to disclose figures, citing “commercial reasons”.
If this were genuinely about democratic outreach, transparency would be a feature, not a liability.
The secrecy strongly suggests officials understand that paying influencers to carry government narratives is politically sensitive and has the potentional to be reputationally damaging if fully exposed.
So this is less about getting “young and apathetic voters” involved, and more about reshaping how politics is received, away from adversarial scrutiny and towards soft, personality-driven validation.
It is politics by vibe rather than argument.
The irony is that genuinely disengaged young people are often disengaged because they recognise marketing when they see it.
Using influencers risks deepening cynicism, not curing it – especially once audiences realise that the “authentic voice” they trusted was being paid to speak on the government’s behalf.
That may win a few favourable impressions in the short term.
It does not build democratic literacy, accountability or trust.
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Has the tide turned at last against the ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’?
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Right-thinking people across the United Kingdom should be sending words of thanks to comedian Reginald D Hunter today, after his victory against an abusive private prosecution by the Campaign Against Antisemitism.
This BBC report tells us how damning the judge’s decision was: “A judge has quashed a private prosecution brought by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) against comedian Reginald D Hunter, saying it was intended to get him “cancelled”.
“The CAA’s prosecution accused the US stand-up comic, 56, of sending offensive messages on three occasions in August and September 2024… to Heidi Bachram on X.
“However, the judge said the CAA’s application for a private prosecution had been “wholly inadequate” when it came to disclosing her social media activity towards him.
““It did not reveal the extent of her tweets directed against Reginald Hunter in the period immediately preceding the complaints (her tweets were sent between 15 August and 11 September 2024),” he said.
““The summary misled me into believing that his comments were addressed to her involvement with the Jewish faith as opposed to his response to attempts that were being made to have him ‘cancelled’.”
“The judge added that the CAA had failed to inform him of a compliance investigation by the Charity Commission into the organisation in November 2024.
“On Tuesday, District Judge Michael Snow quashed a summons for Hunter, ruling that the CAA was seeking to use the criminal justice system for “improper reasons”.”
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Vox Political will end on December 31, so if you haven’t subscribed to The Whip Line yet, please consider doing so before then!
“Vox Political is nearing the end of its fourteenth year, and I want to be honest with you: the online advertising model that kept the site free to read has deteriorated so sharply that it can no longer sustain the work.
This is not a reflection on the readership; it is a structural shift affecting small publishers everywhere.
Rather than quietly winding down, I’m giving you clear notice: Vox Political will close at the end of the year unless something dramatically changes. The good news is that The Whip Line already exists, is reader-funded, and is growing. That is where I can continue producing the journalism you value, free from the chaos of advertiser algorithms.
If you want the work to continue, please join me there. Free and paid subscriptions are available, but please remember it is the paid subscriptions – monthly and annual – that directly fund the reporting.”
The judge’s ruling deserves to be repeated in full because it is unusually explicit:
““The CAA have demonstrated by the misleading and partial way in which it summarised its application and its wilful, repeated, failure to meet its disclosure obligations, that its true and sole motive in seeking to prosecute Reginald Hunter is to have him cancelled,” he wrote.
““I have no doubt that the prosecution is abusive,” Judge Snow added at the hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
““My view of the conduct of the CAA is consistent with them as an organisation which is not ‘playing it straight’ but is seeking to use the criminal justice system, in this case for improper reasons.””
For clarity, let’s go over a few facts that were known about this organisation before the Hunter court case.
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Reform UK’s promises prove empty as it compounds a Tory care betrayal
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Remember Reform UK’s promise to find huge savings and still improve services, on which that party swept into power in several local authorities at this year’s elections?
Pfft. Nonsense.
The proof is in what we’re seeing in Derbyshire. Here’s The Guardian: “A Reform UK-led council plan to shut eight of its residential care homes has been condemned as “a betrayal of local people”.
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Vox Political will end on December 31, so if you haven’t subscribed to The Whip Line yet, please consider doing so before then!
“Vox Political is nearing the end of its fourteenth year, and I want to be honest with you: the online advertising model that kept the site free to read has deteriorated so sharply that it can no longer sustain the work.
This is not a reflection on the readership; it is a structural shift affecting small publishers everywhere.
Rather than quietly winding down, I’m giving you clear notice: Vox Political will close at the end of the year unless something dramatically changes. The good news is that The Whip Line already exists, is reader-funded, and is growing. That is where I can continue producing the journalism you value, free from the chaos of advertiser algorithms.
If you want the work to continue, please join me there. Free and paid subscriptions are available, but please remember it is the paid subscriptions – monthly and annual – that directly fund the reporting.”
“Days before Christmas, Derbyshire county council announced that the homes would have to close after a proposed sale fell through.
“The closures have prompted a backlash and have echoes of the furore in Lancashire where the Reform-led council is planning to close five care homes and five day centres and move residents into the private sector.
“Derbyshire county council said it had been in “intensive” but unsuccessful negotiations with a provider to take over the running of the eight homes as a going concern.
“Joss Barnes, a Reform councillor who is the cabinet member for adult care, said he was “devastated” by the failure of the negotiations.
“The decision to sell the homes was agreed in November 2024 when the authority was Conservative-controlled.”
This is less a single betrayal than a relay race of responsibility – which matters because Reform UK’s defence rests heavily on where that baton was first dropped.
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