For me, everything starts with this: our country is currently set up only to work for a privileged few at the top. It’s time to level the playing field so it works for us all.

When David Cameron talks about the economic recovery, most people in Britain are left wondering why they aren’t feeling its benefits. They want to know why, when they work so hard, their living standards are falling; why, when they make a decent living, they can’t afford to buy a house; and why, against the experience of every generation before us, their kids are worse off than they are.

Or let me put it another way: people are asking why we have zero-hours contracts while some at the top seem to get away with paying zero tax. The same rigged system that lets most people down allows a privileged few to grow ever more wealthy.

This widening inequality is no accident; it is the direct result of the Tories’ values and their beliefs about how Britain should be run.

They believe that insecurity is the way you make people work harder.

They think low pay is the way we should compete in the world.

They trust that markets will always get the right outcome.

They believe the only answer for our public services is to hand them over to private firms — our NHS included.

These ideas failed us in the past and they are failing us now.

Underpinning these ideas is a set of values I abhor: the view that the success of the country depends on a few at the top, and that the rest of us should be content to sit patiently and wait for some scraps to fall from their table.