Presentation by Bill Kerry from The Equality Trust, followed by discussion.

Bill is a co-founder of The Equality Trust and has written and blogged for various organisations including Oxfam and the pressure group Compass. The 2009 book The Spirit Level concluded that the more unequal a society is, the more ill health and social problems it has, and that inequality is always divisive and socially corrosive.

Comparing life expectancy, mental health, levels of violence, teenage birth rates, drug abuse, child wellbeing, obesity rates, levels of trust, educational performance, or strength of community life among rich countries, it is clear that societies which do well on one of these measures tend to do well on all of them, and the ones which do badly, do badly on all of them. The key is the amount of inequality in each society. The picture is consistent, whether we compare rich countries or the 50 states of the USA.