Because so many employers refuse to pay their workers a wage on which they can live - most Britons languishing below the poverty line are in work - the state has to spend billions of pounds a year on in-work benefits.

Being on the left is supposed to be about unbounded optimism, a belief that what is deemed politically impossible by the 'sensible grownups' of politics can be realised, with sufficient imagination and determination.

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

Owen Jones Quotes