Responding to Ed Miliband’s speech at Labour Party Conference, John Hood, Media and Communications Manager at the Equality Trust said:

“It is encouraging to hear Ed Miliband announce his commitment to a mansion tax, but it needs to be done as part of an urgent transformation of council tax into a progressive property tax. More broadly though we need to hear far more from our politicians about how they plan to reduce the UK’s extraordinary levels of economic inequality. We also need all parties to adopt an explicit goal that the net impact of their policies will be to reduce the gap between the richest and the rest.

“Over 80% of the British public believes the gap between rich and poor is too big, and they’re right. Inequality is not only stifling our economy, it is making us a less healthy, happy and prosperous society.No politician can continue to ignore the effects of inequality, and no politician can discount the electorate’s support for its reduction.”