Today’s figures are an exercise in muddying the waters – if you don’t like the answer, ask another question.
Until top recruiters stop thinking that a candidate’s “poshness” is an indicator of their ability, social mobility in Britain will never be more than a myth.
Austerity was a choice and one not born from economic reasoning but political ideology: a desire to dismantle the benefit system and with it, the state.
After looking in detail at all the changes to the benefits system in the last five years, it’s only possible to come to one conclusion: the coalition’s attitude towards disabled people has been pointlessly cruel.
Frances Ryan revisits previous interviewees to find out how they are coping with the bedroom tax and the changes to benefits like the Disability Living Allowance.
The Labour party is missing the opportunity to stand up proudly for low-paid workers and those who rely on state support.
What matters is not privilege, but what you choose to do with it.
Ignoring the history of mental illness of the mother who smothered her three disabled children to death feeds the wider cultural claim that disability is a nightmarish circumstance.
Under austerity, charities are regularly having to substitute for government. We live in a twenty-first century Britain where poorer citizens are back to relying on handouts to live.
It’s not being a “classist gimp”, as the singer termed Labour MP Chris Bryant, to point out that inequality has played a part in how people end up in positions of power in this country.
Private schools allow the privileged to buy their way into every structure of power in this country with barely a whisper from the rest of us. Why give them tax relief as charities when so many do next to nothing to earn it?
The narrative of the fallen abuser is all too familiar: the ruined life that matters is the man’s rather than the woman he raped, hit or killed.
It is very easy to arbitrarily cut benefits rather than do anything about why people might need them.
Cases like that of “Baby Gammy” or the adoptive mother who allegedly turned down a baby because it was born with a disability are welcome distractions from the bigger, deeper problems faced by parents and disabled children under austerity.
When faced with steps, it is not the need to use a wheelchair that makes the person disabled – it is the fact no one has thought to build a ramp.
The coalition government’s harsh welfare cuts have been met by a surge in activism among disabled people, who have found that social media has given them new clout to fight for their rights.
The Conservative MP will stand down at the 2015 election after accepting a police caution for a common assault on his former partner earlier this year.
Faith doesn’t justify voting for inequality or taking the rights of minorities.
The crossbench peer talks to Frances Ryan about the debate surrounding the UK’s first piece of legislation to address the right-to-die, and her concerns that it will put pressure on vulnerable people to “take the next step”.
Loaded magazine has relaunched without topless cover stars, while gadget mag Stuff has dropped the scantily-clad girls, too. Is the “buy a magazine, get some misogyny for free” idea finally dead?
The threat of people losing their home if they rent is at its highest level in more than a decade.
Meritocracy – embodied in the grammar school system – is concerned with achieving equality between equals and permitting inequality between un-equals.
In matters of sex, sexuality and political campaigning, the resurgence of mainstream feminism overlooks disabled women, who are left with the “half-life” of slicing their identity.
“I don’t buy into the idea that being on benefits is a lifestyle choice,” says one claimant. “I’d much prefer to be in my old £38k job, with a life of hope ahead of me, instead of worrying about how to make half a loaf of bread an onion and half a bottle of ketchup into an evening meal.”
What do they think happens when you cut off someone’s source of food, rent and heating for three months?
Since the new Personal Independence Payments began to replace Disability Living Allowance, fewer than one in six people who applied have had their claims decided. While assessments drag out over months, bills still have to be paid and food still has to be bought.
Perhaps if Channel 5's dramatic “debate” about benefits had given less time to attention-seekers like Edwina Currie and Katie Hopkins, it would have been a better conversation about an important issue.
We should be asking why women feel pressured to abort female foetuses, not descending into an anti-choice panic about sex-selective abortion without evidence.
"Deodorant for breasts" is the latest addition to the shame cycle of having a female body.
Right-wing commentators keep arguing for a tighter abortion law in the UK, ignoring the voices of those who would have to live with the consequences.