IN my lifetime the period of greatest potential for social advancement, largely based on merit, seemed to be the grammar school era of the immediate post-war years.

Given good fortune, clever children had a chance of advancement in most careers.

Recent surveys have indicated that this was a false dawn and that current social mobility is regressing. One of the most obvious brakes on mobility is the insidious practice of employers using unpaid internships as a condition of recruitment.

The law profession has long used this method as a means of excluding the hoi polloi, but now many jobs in politics and especially journalism are allocated in the same way.

This is a restrictive practice and also short-sighted. We need the most talented people in such positions and particularly some who, by way of less privileged upbringings, may be open to a wider range of ideas.

Unsurprisingly, as a means of cheap labour, similar recruitment methods are now being introduced in the retail and manufacturing sectors and this does not bode well for the prosperity of future generations.

Such recruitment is a regression to a Victorian age where apprentices were expected to pay for their training.

VJ Connor, Bishop Auckland.