Gordon Brown has taken another step towards healing old wounds within Labour by inviting former Blairite adversary Alan Milburn back into the fold.
Gordon Brown has taken another step towards healing old wounds within Labour by inviting former Blairite adversary Alan Milburn back into the fold to head up a campaign for social mobility.
Although not registering on the Richter scale to the extent of bringing Peter Mandelson back into Cabinet, appointing Mr Milburn, the former health secretary, to a top advisory role is still a surprise.
Along with rumours of attempts to get former spin-chief Alastair Campbell back into the front line, it all points to Labour seeking to rebuild unity ahead of the future General Election campaign.
Mr Milburn, MP for Darlington, has been a bitter rival and fierce critic of Mr Brown in the past, particularly as they wrestled for control of Labour's 2005 election campaign.
However, now he has been appointed chairman of a new commission looking at how to dismantle the barriers preventing those from disadvantaged backgrounds making it in the top professions.
The new Panel on Access to the Professions will feature prominent names from the bar, civil service, media, finance, publishing and police, among others.
Michael Grade, executive chairman of ITV; Gail Rebuck, chairman and chief executive of publisher Random House; Azeem Ibrahim, founder of the European Commerce and Mercantile Bank and Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, are among those who have agreed to serve.
Issues to be considered include financial obstacles to access and progression, the role of work experience and internships, recruitment practices and what can be done to encourage new applicants for certain jobs.
Measures to promote social mobility are to be set out in a White Paper tomorrow and the panel will submit recommendations to the government when it produces a policy statement in June.
There was no hint of a return to the Prime Minister's inner circle until Mr Milburn wrote an article in a Sunday newspaper revealing his new role in ensuring "the best people, regardless of their backgrounds, have a fair crack of the whip".
He added: "This is the right time for the government to make its core purpose creating an upwardly mobile society again.
"While Gordon Brown has rightly made the immediate priority getting the country through the global economic downturn, the government needs to take action now to prepare Britain for the opportunities that will arise in the future."
Mr Milburn said Labour had made progress since 1997, but conceded: "While the glass ceiling in British society has been raised, it has not yet been broken. A renewed drive is needed."
He added the shifting world economy meant professions needed to take advantage of all the talent on offer in the UK.
"With 90% fewer unskilled jobs and 50% more professional jobs expected in Britain by 2020, our future success depends on unlocking the talents of all our people," said Mr Milburn.
However, the Tories were scathing, referring back to the furore in 2000 when the then Chancellor Gordon Brown in a speech to the TUC cited the case of Laura Spence, a high-flying state school pupil denied entry to study medicine at Oxford.
She was later to admit that she had performed poorly at her interview. Shadow work and pensions secretary Chris Grayling said: "This is all about Gordon Brown fighting Laura Spence-style class wars and internal Labour political manoeuvring, and nothing to do with the real root cause of social immobility.
"The government should be concentrating on tackling endemic worklessness, educational failure and family breakdown - not chasing political gimmicks." Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesman Steve Webb said: "Through the Welfare Reform Bill, James Purnell is actually forcing single parents and the disabled back to work, many of whom do not feel ready.
"This is not joined-up thinking, as they will be taking the very jobs the long-term unemployed could have filled."
He added: "The most effective action for the long-term unemployed would have been to save the money spent on a meaningless VAT giveaway, which everyone agrees is making no difference.
"That same money could have been used to help those looking for employment by being invested in new green jobs."
