John Major weighs in on the class war

Former prime minister John Major's comments on social mobility have made the headlines but his remarks on interest rates are "equally striking", says George Eaton in The New Statesman.

Speaking to a local Conservative Association on Friday night, Major called for interest rates to return to "normal levels" (ie, 3%-5%) to create a society that treats "the saver as fairly as it treats the debtor". This is bad advice.

Research by the Resolution Foundation shows that even with "strong and sustained earnings growth", a rise in the base rate to 3.9% by 2017 would leave 1.08 million families in debt peril' (defined as spending more than half of income on debt repayment).

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Low rates may be "cripplingly unfair" to savers, but there are other problems with this government's economic policies that, given his financial background, Major should have pointed out, says James Delingpole in The Daily Telegraph; namely, that by printing money and keeping rates low, resources are being misallocated and asset bubbles are being created, "which make the rich richer and everyone else poorer".

As for his comments on social mobility, if Major really wants to "champion the interests of ordinary hardworking people", he ought to stop engaging in "cheap shots worthy of the worst kind of Labour party class warrior".

Major isn't being disloyal, says Rachel Sylvester in The Times. He is "trying to save his party from itself". David Cameron's greatest weakness is "the perception that he is privileged and out of touch".

Major's decision to speak out about the truly shocking' dominance of a private-school educated elite in the "upper echelons" of British public life indicates "genuine worry" about the Tories' "chances of victory at the next general election". So it's a shame that he's talking nonsense, says Dan Hodges on his Daily Telegraph blog.

In July, the Office for National Statistics reported that the gap between the richest and poorest in Britain is at its lowest level since 1986. Educational mobility is growing. "David Cameron's Britain is actually more equal than Sir John Major's Britain was, or Tony Blair's or Gordon Brown's".

And if Major could make it all the way from Brixton to Downing Street with three O Levels at a time of greater inequality, "then surely there's a glimmer of hope for the rest of us".