Nick Clegg's plan to make internships transparent is all very well, but for the government's real priorities, follow the money

It is easier to identify practices that block social mobility than policies that produce it. The sort of thing that does not help is the recent Conservative fundraising auction at which rich parents purchased internships for their children at top City firms. Less shaming but more typical are the three-month unpaid internships flagged on the Liberal Democrat website. As with voluntary experience on offer in barristers' chambers and other top workplaces, any graduate can apply, but graduates whose parents have large London homes and the means to support them will be more likely to do so.

Nick Clegg yesterday published a plan making the welcome if modest suggestion that Whitehall internships will be advertised properly, not dished out via family connections of the sort that he was immediately and churlishly taunted for having relied on in his youth. Beyond SW1, it is hoped that businesses will volunteer to untangle themselves from the old boy net. A few have made that promise, but there is no obligation on others to follow suit.

Internships can only be one tiny part of a response to the social sclerosis that politicians of all stripes routinely lament. Mr Clegg's document was similar in tone to several that Gordon Brown published. While the evidence on whether mobility is worsening is mixed, it is plainly too low, and that needs to be said. But what matters is how words translate to deeds. The cabinet's offer to go into schools and give pep talks to teens was deemed to merit a special box in the strategy paper, suggesting that real policies were in short supply. The Lib Dem funding premium for poor pupils has a valuable role, although in this climate it is more about alleviating the cuts than anything positive.

Steps up the class ladder take place over entire generations, so five-year governments know they cannot be judged by results. The Telegraph enthusiastically reported that the issue was as much middle-class kids as the deprived, and it seems mobility talk can mean all things to all men. The BBC's gently teasing brainbox Evan Davis asked minister David Willetts whether the plan amounted to the hope that all government policies would work well.

To see where the real priorities lie, follow the money. A decent settlement was this week offered on pensions, even though the elderly are as unlikely to climb the class ladder as they are likely to vote. Meanwhile, from today, working families will see tax credits snatched away faster as they earn, child benefit frozen and a huge cut in childcare support. The message of yesterday's separate strategy on child poverty was that there is more to life than cash. That's as may be, but for poor parents hoping their children might do rather better, every little helps.

Nick Clegg's plan to make internships transparent is all very well, but for the government's real priorities, follow the money

It is easier to identify practices that block social mobility than policies that produce it. The sort of thing that does not help is the recent Conservative fundraising auction at which rich parents purchased internships for their children at top City firms. Less shaming but more typical are the three-month unpaid internships flagged on the Liberal Democrat website. As with voluntary experience on offer in barristers' chambers and other top workplaces, any graduate can apply, but graduates whose parents have large London homes and the means to support them will be more likely to do so.

Nick Clegg yesterday published a plan making the welcome if modest suggestion that Whitehall internships will be advertised properly, not dished out via family connections of the sort that he was immediately and churlishly taunted for having relied on in his youth. Beyond SW1, it is hoped that businesses will volunteer to untangle themselves from the old boy net. A few have made that promise, but there is no obligation on others to follow suit.

Internships can only be one tiny part of a response to the social sclerosis that politicians of all stripes routinely lament. Mr Clegg's document was similar in tone to several that Gordon Brown published. While the evidence on whether mobility is worsening is mixed, it is plainly too low, and that needs to be said. But what matters is how words translate to deeds. The cabinet's offer to go into schools and give pep talks to teens was deemed to merit a special box in the strategy paper, suggesting that real policies were in short supply. The Lib Dem funding premium for poor pupils has a valuable role, although in this climate it is more about alleviating the cuts than anything positive.

Steps up the class ladder take place over entire generations, so five-year governments know they cannot be judged by results. The Telegraph enthusiastically reported that the issue was as much middle-class kids as the deprived, and it seems mobility talk can mean all things to all men. The BBC's gently teasing brainbox Evan Davis asked minister David Willetts whether the plan amounted to the hope that all government policies would work well.

To see where the real priorities lie, follow the money. A decent settlement was this week offered on pensions, even though the elderly are as unlikely to climb the class ladder as they are likely to vote. Meanwhile, from today, working families will see tax credits snatched away faster as they earn, child benefit frozen and a huge cut in childcare support. The message of yesterday's separate strategy on child poverty was that there is more to life than cash. That's as may be, but for poor parents hoping their children might do rather better, every little helps.

Jackie Ashley points out that the coalition agreement states women's pension age will not begin to rise to 66 until 2020, ie after men's and women's pension ages were due to equalise at 65 (This new pension benefits women, but has one big blot, 4 April). I am 57 and have just learned my pension age will increase by two years, from 64 to 66. I was a state pensions adviser at the DWP, giving pension forecasts to thousands of single women like myself, on low incomes. I did everything my employer told me to do in planning early and saving hard for retirement. Now approaching retirement and in poor health, I find they have ignored their agreement and require me to pay back over £10,000 of the pension I've already earned. My MP said it was "the best balance of sustainability with fairness" to ask me to contribute towards the £5bn deficit, and that it was not discriminatory – although no man will have his pension age increased by more than one year. How can women make up for two years' lost pension at this late stage?

Laura Davis

Watford, Hertfordshire

• Jackie Ashley neglects the bigger blot that the new pension will not benefit existing women pensioners as it will not apply to them. This means many will still not be entitled to a full state pension because they have an incomplete contribution record or paid the married women's reduced NI rate. In the 1970s, with rocketing house prices, high inflation and low part-time wages, paying the lower rate seemed sensible for many women with children, who now do not receive a full pension, and are punished for having looked after their families.

Marilyn Biles

Fareham, Hampshire

Jackie Ashley points out that the coalition agreement states women's pension age will not begin to rise to 66 until 2020, ie after men's and women's pension ages were due to equalise at 65 (This new pension benefits women, but has one big blot, 4 April). I am 57 and have just learned my pension age will increase by two years, from 64 to 66. I was a state pensions adviser at the DWP, giving pension forecasts to thousands of single women like myself, on low incomes. I did everything my employer told me to do in planning early and saving hard for retirement. Now approaching retirement and in poor health, I find they have ignored their agreement and require me to pay back over £10,000 of the pension I've already earned. My MP said it was "the best balance of sustainability with fairness" to ask me to contribute towards the £5bn deficit, and that it was not discriminatory – although no man will have his pension age increased by more than one year. How can women make up for two years' lost pension at this late stage?

Laura Davis

Watford, Hertfordshire

• Jackie Ashley neglects the bigger blot that the new pension will not benefit existing women pensioners as it will not apply to them. This means many will still not be entitled to a full state pension because they have an incomplete contribution record or paid the married women's reduced NI rate. In the 1970s, with rocketing house prices, high inflation and low part-time wages, paying the lower rate seemed sensible for many women with children, who now do not receive a full pension, and are punished for having looked after their families.

Marilyn Biles

Fareham, Hampshire