In the neoliberal era, rolling back the state has in practice meant withdrawing state support and social security for the majority, but continuing vast subsidies for vested interests.

Britain's end-of-life and palliative care services are a national travesty. That a public debate on this crisis is so sorely lacking has much to do with our fear of confronting dying and death.

Modern capitalism is based on a myth: that thriving private entrepreneurs generate wealth through their own hard work, innovation and get-up-and-go.

All I want for 2019 is for much-loved pop stars to stop being inadvertent propagandists for mass-murdering dictatorships.

If sharp-elbowed parents are no longer able to buy themselves out of state education, they are incentivised to improve their local schools.

Jobs have become more precarious and staff turnover has increased while union membership has plummeted, weakening workplace solidarity.

In a society rigged in favour of landlords over tenants, to rent privately is to be deprived of security.

Poverty damages the educational potential of children, whether through stress or poor diet, while overcrowded, poor-quality housing has the same impact too.

The existence of billionaires should sound an alarm: they are the most extreme manifestation of wealth generated by the efforts of millions of people being funnelled into the pockets of a tiny few.

What do we value more: an economic system which privileges profit above all other considerations, or the continued existence of human civilisation as we recognise it? A reckoning is coming.