The Fair Society series

We often frame societal risks in terms of immediate, visible threats: pandemics, climate disasters, or geopolitical conflicts. Yet one of humanity’s most persistent dangers—economic inequality—rarely occupies the same urgency in public discourse.David Lay Williams’ compelling book, The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought from Plato to Marx, challenges this oversight by excavating an important truth: for over two millennia, the West’s greatest minds have sounded alarms about concentrated wealth’s corrosive effects on societies.From Plato’s warning that inequality creates “two cities — one of the rich, one of the poor, eternally at war” to Adam Smith’s fear that vast income gaps erode mutual sympathy between classes, history’s sharpest thinkers have identified economic disparity as an existential threat to justice, democracy, and human flourishing.At this event, David Lay Williams and an expert panel discussed what we can learn from the past about the threat of economic inequality, why philosophers considered it so disruptive and destabilising, and how we can make this threat more tangible to provoke action.Speakers:David Lay Williams, Professor of Political Science at DePaul University and Affiliate at the University of Chicago's Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and MobilityKaren Rowlingson, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Professor of Social Policy at the University of YorkLuke Kemp, Research Affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, CambridgeWill Snell, Chief Executive at the Fairness Foundation (chair)

UK politics is focused on short-term crises, at the expense of thinking about and acting on long-term problems. Among other things, this is a barrier to building a fairer society, undermining opportunity and growth and damaging our democracy and our society more broadly. Thinking and acting in the long term is possible, as the Welsh government has proven over the last decade, and brings multiple benefits. Many of today’s thorniest political problems in the UK would have been ameliorated, if not averted, had previous government paid more attention to long term issues. There are a range of institutional, systemic and psychological barriers to thinking and acting in the long term, but there are also many practical solutions that can help to overcome those barriers. The Fairness Foundation and two expert speakers - Derek Walker, the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, and Cat Tully, Managing Director of the School of International Futures - discussed the need for UK politics and policymaking to focus on long-termism and on the welfare of future generations, the barriers to change, and how to overcome them. hThis webinar marked the launch of the Fairness Foundation’s new report, Mission to the Future.

President Trump is in power once more. His victory is complete but the business of understanding just what happened has only just begun as we seek lessons – and warnings – for UK politics and this year’s European elections.Why were the Democrats defeated? Is America’s surging inequality the root cause of President Trump’s victory? What connections can we draw between growing inequality and the populists’ clarion call for a “revolt against elites”?At this event as part of our Fair Society series, in partnership with the Policy Institute at King’s College London, we convened some of the leading thinkers and analysts who have studied the American campaign up close for a discussion about what is fuelling populist politics in America, what we can learn from what happened – and how the UK government should respond.Speakers:Claire Ainsley, Director of the Project on Center-Left Renewal, the Progressive Policy Institute and former Executive Director for Policy for Sir Keir StarmerProfessor Ben Ansell, Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions, Nuffield College Oxford and author of Why Politics Fails The Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP, Member of Parliament for Birmingham Hodge Hill and author of The Inequality of Wealth Peter Hyman, Former Senior Advisor to Sir Keir StarmerHamida Ali, Head of Policy and Programmes, Future Governance ForumProfessor Bobby Duffy, Director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London (chair)

On 15 October the Fairness Foundation published the Wealth Gap Risk Register, an online evidence resource on the impacts and risks of the wealth gap. The report is designed to address limited awareness among policymakers of the causal relationship between the wealth gap and these negative ‘spillover effects’, by communicating the evidence base as clearly and concisely as possible through a range of powerful and accessible data visualisations.The report also looks at the evidence base for the policy solutions that will either reduce the wealth gap or mitigate its impacts on other areas, and at the evidence on public attitudes to both the problem and the solutions (including new polling and focus group research on public understanding of the impacts of wealth inequality).During this webinar, the report’s analysis and recommendations were discussed and situated within the wider context of the debate about inequality, poverty and the government's priorities and choices by an expert panel. This event was run in association with the Policy Institute at King's College London as part of our 'Fair Society' series.Speakers:Liam Byrne, Labour MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North and Chair of the Business & Trade Select CommitteeGraham Hobson, Founder of Photobox and member of the Patriotic MillionairesSonia Sodha, Chief Leader Writer at The ObserverJack Jeffrey, Researcher at the Fairness FoundationWill Snell, Chief Executive at the Fairness Foundation (chair)

What does declining prosperity mean for Britain’s next generation? In his latest book, author and professor Danny Dorling constructs seven “average” children from millions of statistics – each child symbolising the very middle of a parental income bracket, from the poorest to the wealthiest. Seven Childrenexplores the realities facing Britain's youth in the aftermath of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis.Dorling's seven children were born in 2018, at a time when the UK faced its worst inequality since the Great Depression. As they turned five in 2023, their country had Europe's fastest-rising child poverty rates, and even the best-off of the seven is disadvantaged. The book provides insight into the lives of British children living between the extremes of wealth and poverty. It examines questions around parental income, the middle class, and the trends affecting the next generation.At this event in our Fair Society series with the Policy Institute at King’s College London, Dorling discussed the key issues with our expert panel.Speakers:Danny Dorling, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford, and author of Seven Children, Inequality and the 1% and All That Is SolidGeorgia Banjo, Britain Correspondent, The EconomistDame Rachel De Souza, Children’s Commissioner for EnglandWill Snell, Chief Executive, The Fairness Foundation (chair)

In his bestselling new book, Failed State, Sam Freedman outlines how it feels like nothing works in Britain anymore. It has become harder than ever to get a GP appointment. Many property crimes remain unsolved. Rivers are overrun with sewage. Wages are stagnant and the cost of housing is increasing. He asks why it feels like everything is going wrong, at the same time?It's easy to blame dysfunctional politicians, but the reality is more complicated, he says. Politicians can make things better or worse, but all work within our state institutions. And Failed State argues ours are utterly broken.At this event, Freedman – a leading policy expert and writer of the UK’s most popular politics Substack – offered his analysis of how our governance has fallen behind and what can be done to pave the way for a fairer and more prosperous Britain.Speakers:Sam Freedman, author of Failed State and writer of Comment is FreedPolly Curtis, Chief Executive, DemosEmma Norris, Deputy Director, Institute for GovernmentDuncan Robinson, Political Editor and Bagehot columnist, The EconomistBobby Duffy, Director, the Policy Institute at King’s College London (Chair)

One of the new Labour government’s five missions is the opportunity mission, which aims to “break down barriers to opportunity”. It's clear that Labour understands that breaking down barriers to opportunity requires action outside the school gates as well as within them, to tackle barriers to opportunity such as poverty and poor housing. But there’s a risk that, as they start to implement this mission, the messy reality of governing means that the difficult cross-government and cross-sectoral work to tackle these broader barriers to opportunity falls by the wayside, with limited political bandwidth and economic resources focused on the ‘easier’ policy levers that can be pulled within a single government department.On 9 July the Fairness Foundation published a report, Deepening the Opportunity Mission, that aims to demonstrate why the new Labour government needs to tackle inequality before they can make real progress on the opportunity mission, what kinds of policy goals might be useful in orientating government policy towards tackling inequality as a result, and how to work across government to make progress on tackling inequalities as part of a wider shift to mission-driven government and working practices.During this webinar, the report’s analysis and recommendations were discussed and situated within the wider context of the debate about mission-driven government by an expert panel.Speakers:Hamida Ali, Head of Policy and Programmes, Future Governance ForumEmma Norris, Deputy Director, Institute for GovernmentJames Plunkett, Chief Practices Officer, NestaMelanie Field, independent adviser (report co-author)Will Snell, Chief Executive, Fairness Foundation (chair and report co-author)

The UK is a very unfair country. Inequality – whether socio-economic, regional, racial, gender, class-based, or disability-based – has got out of hand. This is morally wrong, but it's also bad for our economy, society and democracy. It's no surprise that 85% of people are concerned about inequality in Britain today. And the bad news is that most experts believe that inequality is going to get even worse over the next few years.To address this, the next government has to take bold action to reduce economic inequality and build a fairer society. If we don’t make progress on this agenda over the next parliament, the 2029 election result might see the far-right making gains that we have never seen before in this country, as foretold in the results of the recent EU elections. The stakes for the next government, and for all of us, could not be higher.On 30 June, as we look ahead to the general election, the Fairness Foundation published a report, 'The Canaries', that examines what the evidence tells us about how much more unfair Britain could become over the next five years, why this matters, and what we can do about it. It highlights the warnings made by experts from a range of sectors and disciplines about the trajectory that we are on, and what they think we need to do to get back onto a fairer, more prosperous and safer path.During this webinar on 1 July, the report’s analysis and recommendations were discussed and situated within the wider context of the debate about inequality and poverty by an expert panel.Speakers:Helen Barnard, Director of Policy, Research and Impact, Trussell TrustShabna Begum, CEO, Runnymede TrustNick Harrison, Chief Executive, Sutton TrustAnita Sangha, Fairness FoundationWill Snell, Chief Executive, Fairness Foundation (chair)