The latest social attitudes survey shows how New Labour's fabled meritocratic society has eroded our sympathy for the poor

The key statistics from the annual British social attitudes survey? Never mind the stats for the minute, the overall point is that Labour is toast: 32% identified themselves as Conservative, compared with 27% who identified as Labour. The Tories haven't been the declared party of choice in 20 years. Even before we started voting Labour, we used to pretend we were going to.

Otherwise, there is good news for homosexuals and unmarried couples who cohabit (I can't believe anyone really minded us in the first place – but even the impulse to pretend to object has waned). And there is bad news for the underprivileged: increased toleration around mostly sociosexual mores comes apparently unaccompanied by any of the more traditional leftwing values. Only 38% of people now believe that a government ought to create a more equal society, down from 51% in pre-New Labour 1994, and the notion that a government ought to redistribute wealth now holds true for only 49% of Labour supporters (68% in 1994).

It feels like walking through David Cameron's psychedelic dreamscape. Finally, the people of Britain are recast in his image. We're right on, but we're still Conservatives. It's interesting that politicians constantly ascribe to the media the power to change people's attitudes; and the media readily if tacitly accepts the accusation. But the research just isn't there to support it – the "media" can't change anything, it is too diffuse. At the most it can have an impact on setting an agenda.

Conversely, politicians can and do change attitudes. But because they are clots, they often change them too far in the other guy's direction. John Curtice, author of the report's chapter on redistribution, remarks: "In repositioning itself ideologically, New Labour has helped ensure that British public opinion now has a more conservative character." This is underlined by pan-European comparisons: in Norway and France, a strong political left is echoed in more radical public attitudes.

And yet, something about holding New Labour wholly responsible sticks in the throat. You can imagine them being pleased. You can imagine Tony Blair chortling about it on the way home from the Chilcot inquiry, and Peter Mandelson, hearing that he and his chums alone stopped decades of redistributive zeal, feeling intensely relaxed.

And there's an ethical equation behind this that I can't believe New Labour either wanted or would have been ­capable of: the juxtaposition of an easy-going liberal morality with a growing intolerance for the poor is more than a curiosity. In the binary 80s and early 90s, the left played nice, championing the underdog, whether that meant minority interests or class war. The right played horrid, championing each for himself, and that generally meant a white, middle-class him. The idea that identity politics – the struggles against racism, sexism, homophobia – might be in conflict with class struggle had plenty of currency among 70s academics, but none at all in British politics, where you were either nice or horrid.

Blair's triangulation was this fabled meritocracy, a feelgood creed where we don't have to be locked in eternal struggle, we just all try our best and end up minted. This took hold – in a study about social equality conducted last year by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 69% of respondents agreed with the statement: "There is enough opportunity for virtually everyone to get on in life if they really want to. It comes down to the individual and how much you are motivated." Without that (pretty groundless) faith in mobility, many of these newly revealed, hostile attitudes to the poor – for instance, only one in five of us now believes that unemployment benefits are too low and cause hardship (53%, 16 years ago) – would be untenable.

Yet this isn't just Blair's vision – all the equal-opportunities arguments of the past 20 years have been meritocratic: we should be treated equally because we all, regardless of our gender or race or sexual orientation, might be as good as one another; as intelligent, as socially useful, as talented. This stands up, and becomes mainstream, because it's self-evidently true. The language of meaningful leftwing politics is different – we should be treated equally, made equal, because unequal societies cannot flourish. It doesn't matter whether we're talented or deserving – indeed, the less talented we are, the more we deserve – it merely matters that inequality is stamped out. It was the strategic genius of the third way to disentangle these strands of justice, but now we need a fourth way, to knit them back together.

The unbelievable thing is that, even in this mulch of conservatism, this belief that the poor are poor on purpose, 67% of people still think it is the government's responsibility to reduce income differences between rich and poor. As soon as you put the word "redistribution" in the question, everybody's suddenly against it.

But with a basically equivalent question about income gap, two thirds of people don't want to live in an unequal society. They don't, furthermore, think that's up to God, or chance, or fate – they think it's up to the government. So this actually isn't Cameron's lucky day at all. There's not much concrete planning for narrowing the income gap in the Labour manifesto, but none at all in the Tories'. It's almost amazing how much we've changed under New Labour, but it's more amazing still how much we haven't.

By synthesising old Tory and traditional left ideas a genuinely egalitarian society can be achieved

Traditional Toryism justified social inequality. Old Labour believed in equality of outcomes. But today both parties have eschewed their earlier approaches and aspire instead to "equality of opportunity". For Gordon Brown, it is "the whole of social justice"; indeed equalising opportunity has captured progressive thinking and legislation for the last 30 years.

However, as the report by the National Equality Panel published today makes clear, this approach has failed and needs to be radically called into question. Inequality has risen, not fallen. Over those three decades the net income ratio of the top 10% to the bottom 10% has risen by more than a quarter. Governments have tended to tackle income at the edges with minor acts of benefit increase, but the real unaddressed agenda is wealth and assets, and here the ratio is truly stupendous: the total household wealth of the richest 10% is virtually 100 times that of the poorest 10%. One can only conclude that equality of opportunity is an ­inadequate and incoherent approach.

Why inadequate? Primarily, because it will not benefit most people. By definition, the winners in life are few, the losers several, and the middle the majority. Those who fail to win in the socioeconomic race still make a crucial contribution in doing mundane but necessary jobs. They, as much as the winners, deserve a fulfilling life in accordance with their capacities. But the ­rhetoric of egalitarian opportunity means that ­everyone who doesn't succeed is defined as a failure. Such contempt ­reinforces and repeats inequality.

Why incoherent? Because where opportunity displaces outcome, the accident of birth is treated as if it was entirely analogous to the accident of race or gender. But it is not. Society and government can refuse race or gender prejudice simply by not being prejudicial. But class is not so easy: one can never entirely extract people from their ancestry and upbringing.

These problems reveal a yet deeper incoherence. Equality of opportunity is advanced by those who advocate a meritocracy. But no account of what is objectively valuable for a society based on merit is ever offered. Instead the victors of such social competitions often have no inherent social values at all – look at the vast rewards reaped by the traders in socially useless banks. Equality of opportunity is thus wholly synonymous with a market without morals and a meritocracy without merit.

Paradoxically, what we need is a new synthesis of the traditional left's emphasis on addressing economic inequity and the old right's concern with justified inequality. In terms of the former, it is impossible to provide equal opportunities for children without improving the existing outcomes of the lives of their parents. We need a new political economy that will distribute resources more evenly and give working people greater assets and confidence, thereby ensuring a better start for their children.

The modern left scarcely addresses this need. Instead, by vaguely implying that all inequality is bad, it remains impotent in the face of a persistent inequality that is both merited and unmerited. But common sense tells us that inherited inequality is in part the result of economic injustice and in part the result of disparities of intelligence, skill and application. Currently the left tends to admit the latter truth for future practice, but to deny it in their theoretical account of the past.

It can escape this contradiction by embracing the "old Tory" view that privilege is not just reward for success, but also a way of providing the appropriate resources for the wielding of power linked to virtue. By virtue we mean here a combination of talent, fitness for a specific social role, and a moral exercise of that role for the benefit of wider society.

If we could conceptualise justifiable inequality, the results would ironically be more egalitarian than a vague and hypocritical hostility to any inequality whatsoever. Why so? First, because many current inequalities would turn out to be unjustifiable and so a proper politics for their removal would emerge. Second, because the more we seek to link social and economic prestige with virtue, then the more we can hope for good financial and political leaders ­possessed of compassion and integrity.

The politics of equality of opportunity has licensed ever greater inequality; we need instead a more radical ­economic egalitarianism coupled with the ­recognition of a difference of roles and a hierarchy of excellence.

There's no need to leave the country to satisfy your wanderlust, thanks to a range of adventure festivals and shows across the UK, writes Susan Greenwood

You could try to make your way around the world in 80 days but frankly at this time of bleak midwinter that seems like rather a lot of effort.

Though if your sofa isn't offering up quite the inspiration for adventure and lust for travel that you need to see you through to spring, you may want to catch some of the Banff Mountain Film Festival which might just be rolling through a town near you soon.

This year for the first time, the festival - which started in Canada in 1976 - will be showing a selection of its films in the UK. Entries cover the genres of travel, adventure and sport – from endless snowfields in Japan:

...to the rivers of Africa:

... to terrifying free-solo rock climbing ascents of the Half Dome in Yosemite National Park and speed flying from the upper slopes of Mont Blanc.

In other words, you get to travel the globe and get really scared, without actually doing anything or spending more than £12 - the cost of a ticket.

This year's festival received 277 entries from 28 countries. The tour programme narrows this down to eight movies spread over a 2.5 hour period, with the UK leg kicking off in Glasgow on 29 January, ending in Cardigan, Wales, on 20 February.

Highlights include the highly acclaimed ski movie Signatures: Canvas of snow, and beautifully shot mountain biking film Kranked – Revolve.

If you prefer your festivals slightly more homegrown, then the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival celebrates its fifth year in 2010. Taking place from 12-14 March in Steel City, it will show an exhausting number of movies as well as host youth development projects, live music, photo exhibitions and competitions.

And further south, armchair adventurers should head to this weekend's Adventure Travel Live show at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London for an injection of inspiration. With talks, workshops, expedition advice and photography exhibitions it will have you sky diving in New Zealand before you can say: "are you nuts?!"