The Conservative party chairman, Eric Pickles, is from a working class background himself, and insists the class system is “as dead as a doornail”. If so, why does the party’s official website mention the state schools attended by three members of the shadow cabinet, but not the private schools that educated the rest? Jon Dennis, The Guardian.

During the Blair years, it was often said that exceptional wealth at the top would inevitably trickle down to the bottom of the pyramid.

The reality is that the only thing that trickled down was a shower of credit cards, insane mortgages and ridiculously irresponsible loans dished up to the desperate. But it was only a matter of time before the policy of further ripping off the most financially vulnerable was going to end up bursting like a swollen, pus-filled spot. The trite old saying that chickens come home to roost proved wiser than a hundred top economists lined up together. Claude, Hagley Road to Ladywood.