Nearly all political parties across the spectrum aspire to the idea that there should be 'equality of opportunity'. What people mean by equality of opportunity varies, however, sometimes concentrating on relative chances of ending up at the top or bottom of a social or economic ladder, sometimes on their absolute chances of reaching worse level of attainment or outcome. What is needed to achieve the former is more tougher politically than to achieve the latter--in relative terms, increasing one person's chances of going up also increases another's of going down. [...]