MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
Not in it together
PAUL DONOVAN appreciates a candid analysis of the the inequality of today’s UK
Demonstrators during a march from Trafalgar Square to Westminster in central London to raise awareness of the level of child poverty in the UK
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
A New Awakening: Adventures In British Jazz 1966 - 1971, G3, and Buck Owens
JAMES WALSH is moved by an exhibition of graphic art that relates horrors that would be much less immediate in other media
Shattered Nation
Danny Dorling, Verso, £14.99
THIS excellent book from Danny Dorling provides a comprehensive picture of the way in which the UK has effectively shattered as a functioning country.
Education, health, welfare, transport and the utilities have all been destroyed by the neoliberal creed of the market knows best, making it “a society that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.”
The central thesis of Shattered Nation is how Britain has become one of the most unequal countries in the world. In Europe, it is second only to Bulgaria when it comes to inequality. Not that it was always thus — Britain was one of the most equal countries back in the 1970s. Income disparities were at their lowest in 1974.
More from this author
PAUL DONOVAN applauds a timely play that explores the resonances of McCarthyite nationalism in today’s US
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by an account of the long history of Catholic Church’s involvement in espionage
Similar stories
PAUL DONOVAN cannot fault an analysis that points to the UK as one of the most unequal societies in the world, but struggles to share the author’s optimism
PAUL DONOVAN applauds the dogged determination of the Old Vic to stage Dickens’s classic Christmas moral tale in support of Waterloo food bank
PAUL DONOVAN recommends a novel approach to presenting the case and figures of shameful levels of UK child poverty
SYLVIA HIKINS welcomes a brilliant book that should be compulsory reading for all MPs