Catch a falling tsar

Prime ministers like to appoint outsiders – or tsars – to head up policy committees. It gives an impression of being open to ideas and avoiding partisanship on matters that affect everyone. Even better is to invite a political opponent to look at a particularly controversial subject.

The Coalition government under David Cameron set up the Social Mobility Commission and asked a former Labour Cabinet minister, Alan Milburn, to chair it. Now he has resigned, accusing Theresa May of failing in her pledge to “build a fairer Britain”. Since she has only been in office for about 17 months, and has been preoccupied with Brexit, a general election or both, it seems a bit much to expect the Prime Minister to have achieved national fairness in that time.

Mr Milburn’s principal reason for quitting is that the Government has not matched its rhetoric with achievement, an observation that could easily be applied to the Labour administration of which Mr Milburn was a prominent member as health secretary. There certainly seems to have been a lack of commitment from No 10 towards his commission, which has been whittled down from 10 members to four, with vacancies left unfilled.

Mrs May did have a good idea to improve social mobility – the return of grammar schools. But any chance of that happening disappeared with the loss of her Commons majority in June. The Prime Minister entered Downing Street promising “a country that works for everyone”, a grand ambition that will take years to achieve. It is hard to see how Mr Milburn thinks he can help bring it about by walking away.