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Equality has been a thorny issue for both Labour and Conservatives. Tony Blair famously said he was ‘relaxed’ about people being fabulously wealthy when challenged on Newsnight about the ever widening gap between rich and poor under Labour. His view was in keeping with the approach of the Conservative party which has traditionally put its faith in ‘trickle down’ economics, and was also criticised for increasing the gap between rich and poor when in power.

So it was bold of Bright Blue, a new Tory think tank, to face the issue of fairness head on in their first debate entitled Does Equality Matter last night at Westminster (Jonty Oliff-Cooper, co-founder of Bright Blue, explains their position above).

Shadow Work and Pensions minister Theresa May, and left of centre commentator Polly Toynbee, the two speakers, both agreed that equality mattered, but disagreed about the importance of income as a key measure of equality. Both focused their comments on policies needed to help those on average or low incomes improve their situation, saying relatively little – and in May’s case nothing – about what to do about reducing the share of wealth that goes to the very rich.

Theresa May argued that income was only one factor in a complex matrix of problems that stopped people fulfilling their potential. She talked a lot about family breakdown, drug addiction, cycles of long term worklessness and other apparently non-income related factors that contributed to poverty, following the line Cameron had adopted the day before in his speech at DEMOS, to the annoyance of some. She insisted there was no one solution to reducing levels of inequality and said what was needed was flexibility and bespoke policies that met the needs of individuals.  She gave the example of autistic young people who have special needs for help into work that could never be met by an off the shelf approach. The voluntary and private sector would be called on to meet many of these needs.

Interestingly, May did not challenge the notion that inequality needed to be reduced or that more equal societies are happier and more successful, although she did not develop these points with any great enthusiasm.

Polly Toynbee, on the other hand, enthused about The Spirit Level, a recently published book by academics Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, which shows that on a whole range of measure from health to teenage pregnancy and crime, the more equal a society is, the more successful it is. It was not so much how much money people had that mattered, she said, but the relative gap between the richest and poorest. A key issue was status, how people see themselves in relation to others. Where there are big gaps between rich and poor, those towards the bottom of the social hierarchy feel a lack of status, resulting in depression, crime and anti-social behaviour.

The obsession amongst some disenfranchised young people in the UK with ‘respect’ and their willingness to commit acts of violence to gain ‘respect’ was evidence, she claimed, that these status issues had a big impact on the happiness or otherwise of a society.

Toynbee said redistributive tax policies were needed to reduce the gap between rich and poor and praised tax credits as an effective redistributive measure. May said nothing about redistribution and did not stay long enough to be asked about the issue.

Questions from the audience focused on detailed policy issues such as where to focus priorities in allocating resources to the Sure Start programme, and how local authorities can work with central government.

One questioner asked whether cuts needed to bring down the budget deficit would be an opportunity or a threat to the next government. Toynbee said it would be an opportunity for the Conservatives to cut back on state provision. Teresa May dodged the question somewhat by saying it would be a challenge, but said it would be an opportunity to spend money better and acknowledged that cutting without increasing inequality would not be easy. When challenged on the Conservative’s record on tackling inequality under Thatcher, she said the gini coefficient (a measure of inequality) was higher now than it has ever been.

Anyone hoping to map future Tory policy on equality issues needed to read between the lines. But the focus by Theresa May on individual and family issues as the key factors in inequality, and the absence of any mention by her of redistribution or greater regulation to crack down on mega pay levels in both either the private or public sectors, suggests the new Tory approach to inequality may not be so different from the old one.

When we eventually come out of recession, will the Tories, if they are in power, allow the gap between rich and poor to grow even wider? Will they continue with the laissez-faire economics of both previous Labour and Conservative governments which have allowed the city to let rip and top earners to increase their pay to levels which would have been unimaginable just two decades ago?

That might be a good subject for the next Bright Blue debate.