There have been modest redistributive reforms, but the party of the workers still daren’t admit that Britain’s rampant inequality needs to be addressed

After 125 years of practice, Labour ought to be good at saying why resources should be redistributed from the rich to everyone else. Its founding conference in 1900 passed a motion calling for “a distinct Labour group in Parliament”, to collaborate with any party “promoting legislation in the direct interests” of the working class. Creating a more egalitarian society and politics – which by definition means redistribution from the powerful – was Labour’s original purpose.

Britain was then, and remains, a highly unequal country: more unequal currently than neighbours such as Ireland, the Netherlands and France. This week the children’s commissioner, Rachel de Souza, said that some British children were living in “almost Dickensian levels of poverty”. But as any expensive but packed restaurant, pavement lined with new Range Rovers or row of smoothly renovated home exteriors will tell you, the rich have been enjoying a long boom in Britain, arguably ever since the Conservatives abolished the top 60% income tax rate 37 years ago.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist