Imagine you're a Tory MP. For some of you, I suspect, this will come as naturally as impersonating a giant badger, but try. So you're an ambitious Conservative with a headache. Your chancellor boasts of a recovery, which hardly anyone else seems to think exists. The otherwise accident-prone Labour leader enjoys a poll bounce every time he faces down big business, whether Murdoch or the energy firms. Meanwhile, whether it's votes for Farage or sales of Piketty, you keep spotting a growing public unease with dominant elites. The proximate cause of your headache is inequality.
What to do? You can try and rubbish the figures showing the widening gulf between rich and poor. Or change the question, to talk about how the whole world is getting more equal. But the voters won't necessarily buy this: when Ipsos Mori asked the public this spring which issue they considered the most important in Britain, poverty/inequality had its strongest showing ever, ranking above schools, hospitals, crime, inflation, pensions and housing. For a forthcoming report, the pollsters asked more than 16,000 people from 20 countries whether "large differences in income and wealth is bad for society": 67% of Britons agreed a bigger proportion than in egalitarian Sweden.
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