Reading Peter Beresford's new book, especially Parts II and III, reminds me of the hope that so many of us had at the height of the pandemic that those dark days could lead to us ‘building back better’, as the cracks in our society became horribly evident. Debates about what a good or better society might look like helped to keep us going. Even the editorial board of the Financial Times wrote that ‘Radical reforms – reversing the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades – will need to be put on the table. … Policies, until recently considered eccentric, such as basic income and wealth taxes, will have to be in the mix’. Referencing the Second World War and the Beveridge Plan, ‘the same kind of foresight is needed today. Beyond the public health war true leaders will mobilise now to win the peace’.1 Alas, it was not to be. Poverty worsened, public services became ever more threadbare, and the carers for whom we had clapped weekly during the pandemic did not receive any tangible recognition.

What this book does is not try to flesh out what a better society might look like but explore how we might do politics differently to get there. It emphasises the importance of means as well as ends, underlining that they are intertwined so that ‘both need to be based on the same inclusive and egalitarian values’. It chimes well with the closing message of a recent pamphlet from Compass, the pressure group for a good society: ‘We can't wait for the perfect government. We need to start making that society now and showing politicians what needs to be done’.