Fairness versus Equality

Another New Labour con trick. They used to talk about equality, (while never doing much about shrinking the gap between rich and poor). These days they will talk about fairness. This means that they ignore all the hidden ways that power and privilege reproduce themselves and say that as long as everyone has had a school place (no matter what the teacher-student ratio, the home conditions, the social expectations etc.) then the outcome is “natural” and therefore fair. Brilliant: treat unequals equally and call it fairness.