#disadvantage

By: Toby Young

Published: Mar 25, 2026

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the publication of the report of Lord Sewell’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities (CRED). In spite of a suitably diverse group of commissioners (or perhaps because of that), it refused to blame ‘systemic racism’ for the underachievement of certain ethnic minorities. It didn’t dismiss that hypothesis entirely, but concluded that other factors, particularly class, geography and family background, were more important. This analysis – supported by lots of data – did little to protect the commissioners from the fury of the woke left, who denounced them for ignoring historical injustices.

Exhibit A in the report’s argument was the poor educational performance of white working-class boys. If ‘systemic racism’ was so determinative, why did they do worse in their GCSEs than working-class Caribbean boys? Exhibits B, C and D were the success of other ethnic groups, such as Africans, Indians and Chinese.

Five years on and poor white boys are faring no better. According to new research published by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), only 36 per cent of white British boys on FSM reached the expected standard in GCSE maths and English last year. This compares with 65 per cent of all pupils, 39 per cent of black Caribbean boys on FSM, 58 per cent of black African boyson FSM, 68 per cent of Bangladeshi boys and 82 per cent of Chinese boys on FSM. The consequences when it comes to higher education are stark. Just 14 per cent of poor white boys went into higher education at the age of 19 in 2023-24 compared with more than half of all black and Asian students on FSM.

‘White working-class boys from the poorest homes are still stuck at the bottom of the class,’ says Lord Sewell. ‘Our warnings were not listened to.’

Those warnings focused on family breakdown, a factor also singled out in the CSJ report. It found that two in ten poor white children live with married parents compared with six in ten poor children from non-white families. Turns out, growing up in a stable two-parent home is a stronger predictor of educational attainment than which ethnic group you belong to. There’s more bad news for the ‘structural in-equality’ brigade: sex is a predictor of success – but not in the way they think. Women accepted onto full-time under-graduate courses in the 2025 Ucascycle outnumber men by 28 per cent.

The Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has described outcomes for white working-class pupils as a ‘national disgrace’ but she’s done precious little about it. Last year she pulled the plug on a new academic sixth-form, co-sponsored by Eton and Star Academies, that had been approved to open in Middlesbrough. She did, however, give the green light to a similar school in Oldham, which just happens to have a much larger non-white population.

Decisions like this have fuelled a growing sense among the white working class that they’re being treated like second-class citizens. A striking finding in the latest Crime Survey for England and Wales is that Asians and black people are more likely to have a positive view of the police – 55 per cent – than whites – 48 per cent. A Gallup poll in December found that only 30 per cent of Reform voters, who are overwhelmingly white and working class, have confidence in the judicial system, compared with 67 per cent of Labour supporters and 63 per cent of Conservatives. Perhaps not surprising, given the additional legal protections granted to those with ‘protected’ characteristics. Only an intervention by the Home Secretary last year prevented the Sentencing Council from mandating that ‘pre-sentencing reports’ be provided to the courts for certain minority groups, making it less likely they’d be sent to jail. To add insult to injury, anyone complaining about our ‘two tier’ justice system is dismissed by the liberal elite as a ‘conspiracy theorist’.

My main takeaway from reading the CRED report was that the huge effort undertaken by successive governments to address institutional biases against black Britons has been a success, with GCSE results and university participation rates improving and mistrust in the police and the courts declining. But this has come at the expense of the white working class, who have in effect switched places with them. The grievances previously felt by black Britons are now nursed by this demographic, and in the past five years the ‘left behind’ feeling has got worse.

Lord Sewell says the solution is to address inequality through fair and universal policies aimed at benefiting the least well-off, regardless of ethnicity. Amen to that.

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Dynamic pricing is not new but it has not been widespread up until recently.

We all know about train fares being more expensive during peak times and parents know that holidays cost more during school breaks than at any other time of the year. Airline tickets are subject to dynamic pricing and there was a trend towards off-peak electricity tariffs at one time. This summer we saw tickets for Oasis concerts subject to dynamic pricing, resulting in massive spikes in the cost of a ticket.

Dynamic pricing is when a company changes their pricing to match demand and supply. Hence train journeys are more expensive during the rush hour than in the middle of the day when demand is lower. Holidays are more expensive during school breaks because demand is higher from families with children.

Few of us like this traditional method of dynamic pricing but we have accepted it as part of our way of life. The old fashioned dynamic pricing model was fairly unsophisticated and based on the time of day in the case of rail and airline tickets and specific weeks and months of the year in the case of holidays.

This is no longer the case. Artificial Intelligence allows companies to literally change prices in line with changes in demand every second if they so want. Some of the companies using AI to set prices are Amazon, Uber, Airbnb, Tesco, Ocado and Sky. Amazon is said to reset prices every ten minutes.

The days of “fixed pricing" are fast disappearing. Long gone are the days when a company added up all of its production costs to work out the cost per unit and then added a little bit more in order to make a profit. This was basically what is known as the objective or labour theory of value. This has been supplanted by the "subjective theory of value" (STV).

According to the subjective theory of value a products worth (price) is not determined by how much it costs to produce but by how much people are willing to pay for that good at any given moment. At its worst this means that ALL goods and services should be sold for maximum monetary return regardless of the cost of production. No wonder supporters of neo-liberal economics favour STV.

At one level this doesn’t really matter. Oasis concert tickets may have doubled in original price due to dynamic pricing but not being able to afford a concert ticket is not a matter of life or death. It is however, symptomatic of a growing social problem.

The assumption of neo-liberal economists and their support of STV pricing is that individual choice is paramount in all economic transactions. For the neo-liberal societal values do not exist, there is only individual choice. Mrs Thatcher, the woman who championed neo-liberal economics in the UK, famously said: “There’s no such thing as society”. Many Tory's still believe this to be true but they are demonstratively mistaken.

During Covid we all stood at our doors every Thursday night clapping and banging pots to applaud the bravery of our dedicated health professionals. Yes, we did this as individuals but also as a society. When the England football team were progressing through the stages of the European cup we watched each game as individuals but also as a nation. The same is true of the recent Olympic and Paralympic games.

Ironically, some of our most ardent neo-liberal Tory MP’s have been recently admonishing us for not being proud of our English identity. Robert Jenrick, a contender for the leadership of the Conservative Party said yesterday that English identity had “started to fray” due to mass immigration and public institutions “dismissing our history”.

Sorry, the neo-liberals cannot have it both ways. Either there is an entity called English society, with its own history and set of values, or we are just individuals all acting according to our own individual needs. The fact that latter view is obviously mistaken does not deter the advocates of dynamic pricing. For them the goal is maximisation of profit regardless of social cost.

A thousand reasons why dynamic pricing is good for the consumer will be rolled out as more and more companies adopt this system of pricing, but the bottom line will always be making more profit. And in a system where pricing is determined by what price the individual is willing to pay rather than the actual cost of production, in the end it is only the rich who benefit.

South West Water has recently introduced the cruder form of dynamic pricing to their customers. They will be charging more for water use in summer than in winter. Consumers were given no choice about this and they have yet to be told what the charges will be. This “trial" will last for 2 years.

This is the spin:

“These pioneering trials are designed to make sure that water bills are fairer and more reflective of individual consumption patterns and are part of our wider commitment to making customer-first decisions in everything we do.” (CornwallLive:19/09/24)

Note the emphasis on “individual consumption". To my mind water is a public good, a societal necessity. As such I want to see pricing evened out over the whole community. Under dynamic pricing  the rich can consume as much water as they like because they can afford to pay, while the poorer members of society will have to suddenly become use conscious. While the rich fill their swimming pools and have the lawn sprinklers on day and night, the poor will have to think twice about how often the toilet is flushed, how often the washing machine is used and can they afford to shower everyday. The poor pensioner will be calculating whether or not they have enough money to water their beloved garden.

Ok, my pensioner being unable to afford to water the garden is a hypothetical scenario. The cost of music venue tickets isn’t, neither are the prices you pay for an Uber, a holiday let from Airbnb, the food you buy from Tesco or Ocado. Even the price of a pint is now affected by dynamic pricing.

“A campaign group representing pubgoers has criticised the move by Stonegate, Britain’s largest pub company, to raise the price of pints during its busiest trading hours in some of its venues by 20p..."  Financial Times: 12/09/24)

If the price of a British pint of beer is now subject to dynamic pricing then nothing is sacred!

More seriously, when the market economy becomes the market society, when those in power promote the value of maximising profit for the few at the expense of the happiness and well being of the many, then, as a society, we lose all sense of humanity, morality and common decency.

Educational

Resources

(OER)

OER,  are freely available, openly licensed resources such as textbooks, media, videos, articles, and more -- that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing as well as for research purposes.

Advantages of using OERs:

expanded access to learning.

enhancement of regular course content. 

quick circulation.

showcasing of innovation and talent.

continually improved resources.

Challenges

Despite the description above, using OER is not always straightforward. 

There are various challenges.

Understanding open licences – Not everyone is familiar with Creative Commons open licences and what they permit. 

Adaptation of OER requires new skills – To adapt and repurpose OER, the practitioner needs practice in revising and remixing resources, in addition to basic ICT skills.

Traditional mindsets – Many educators are uncomfortable or feel it is wrong to use other people's work and they choose to protect, rather than share, their own resources.

Access to ICT – Robust internet connectivity and good access to ICT are essential to access and adapt OER 

Accessibility of OER

The goal of web accessibility is to ensure that people with disabilities can use the web in equal conditions than others. Accessibility is twofold, the websites and the educational resources. Accessibility is the primary requirement to guarantee equal access to all users, especially, people with disabilities.

Reference:

Yasuyuki Uesugi - Disadvantage

Self-released