Red tops and blue blood

摘要

It was1944 when Derek Jameson, an unqualified 14-year-old from an east London slum, boarded the number six bus to Fleet Street and got a job as a messenger-boy at Reuters. By 1977 he had become the editor of the Daily Express, the first of three national newspapers he would edit. Would such an ascent be possible these days? "I don't think I would get past the front door," Mr Jameson says.rnLabour has spent much time and money trying to make tales such as Mr Jameson's more common. But Britain remains a socially immobile place: a father's income determines that of his son more than anywhere else in the oecd, a rich-country club. On July 21st the latest attempt to crack the problem was unveiled: a report by Alan Milburn, a former minister, concluding that access to the professions was increasingly restricted to the wealthy, and suggesting ways to tackle the problem.