If income and a colour television are better ones, then just about everyone is better off. The problem for the Tories is that to many people, particularly those on lower incomes, it does not feel like a rousing success either. One reason is that poorer Britons are increasingly becoming the inhabitants of a place apart. Growing up in a climate in which unemployment is the depressing norm has troubling implications for the next generation. The Tories have not been able to do much about this.
Labour faces a different issue.
It has been quick to damn inequality, but slow to propose remedies. A high minimum wage could narrow the gap a little, but it could also price some people out of work and force them into idleness and dependence. Britain faces the same dilemma as every other industrialised country. While material want has largely been met, the depth and duration of dependency is increasing, because the skills of many of the poor are ill-matched to the needs of the economy. More than either inequality ratios or the number of CD -players per home, this is Britain's most urgent poverty issue.