Danny Dorling: Peak Inequality – a discussion with David Runciman
Inequality is the key political issue of our time. The dramatic rise of income inequality in the UK, from the mid 1970s through to today’s peak, created a state that was so unstable that Brexit was attempted.
Danny Dorling wrote his seminal work Injustice: Why social inequality persists in 2010, and was an early proponent of the urgent need for rapidly reducing economic inequalities before the implications of trying to live with such terrible divisions lead to a disaster. The subtitle of the book Peak Inequality was “Britain’s ticking time bomb“. He is now much sought-after as one of the foremost contributors to the debates surrounding it. teh graph below was taken form the book and appeared in the New Statesman.
The falls and then rise of income inequality in the UK
In Peak Inequality Danny Dorling brings together brand new material alongside a carefully curated selection of his most recent writing on inequality from publications as wide ranging as the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, New Statesman, Financial Times and the China People’s Daily. The book covers key inequality issues including politics, housing, education and health. He paints many pictures, and draws many graphs, maps and cartograms to illustrates just how socially, politically and economically divided the UK has become:
The political height of polarisation: The UK General Election Map of 2015
Danny explores whether we reached ‘peak inequality’ in 2018. He concludes by predicting what the future holds for Britain, as attempts are made to defuse the ticking time bomb while we simultaneously try to negotiate Brexit and react to the wider international situation of a world of people demanding to become more equal.
The fall, rise and fall again of Tory political segregation
In most affluent countries of the world equality is now on the rise. The UK still has to find its way. It is currently the most economically unequal state in the EU28 by the OECD measure of income inequality. To listen to a discussion about the book, click the arrow below:
- Recorded at the Cambridge Literary Festival, The Divinity School, University of Cambridge, April 5th 2019.
Peak Inequality: Britain’s ticking time bomb