The war on poverty opens a second front

I detest the use of the word ‘Czar’. Everything has a Czar – potato regulation, multi-story car parks and Twitter being my favourite three. But the war on poverty needs to be fought by free-thinking absolutists. The appointment of Frank Field to conduct an independent review into poverty and life chances confirms David Cameron’s, and the coalition’s, non-partisan commitment to social mobility and betterment.
 
Field presents his analysis in a succinct piece in the Telegraph.  He writes:

‘Over recent decades, the Left and centre-Left’s answer to poverty and inequality has been to spend more money, to redistribute from richer to poorer. Yet this central social democratic ideal is being tested to the point of destruction. Over the past 13 years, the government doubled all its key budgets; in real terms, overall public expenditure rose by more than 50 per cent. Few people would argue that the solution to the complex social and economic problems Britain faces is even higher spending.