Things have not been going great for Britain. Wages are flatlining, taxes are rising, and public services are collapsing. Our children can’t afford to buy houses, our parents aren’t receiving the social care they need and our neighbours are reliant on foodbanks. We are all yearning for a way out of the financial crises, generational wars and political dysfunction that dominate our lives. Most of all we want our future – and Britain’s – back.

There are few who are better placed to investigate Britain’s plight than Torsten Bell, Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation. In Great Britain? he offers both a clear-eyed diagnosis of the problems facing our country – a uniquely toxic combination of huge inequality and stagnant economic growth – and a hopeful, bold vision for the alternative. As he shows, the Britain of today contains the raw materials to build a better Britain tomorrow – an investment nation of good work and secure homes, and a society in which both burdens and prosperity are shared.

This treasure trove of enlightening and original analysis is a much-needed antidote to the pervading sense that Britain’s decline is inevitable or irreversible. Torsten Bell argues that our era of chaos and cynicism needs neither utopianism nor nostalgia, but a practical patriotism to raise living standards and create a more equal country. He passionately points us towards a Britain that we can actually build – a future worth fighting for.