Last week, the Office for National Statistics published data showing that income inequality in the UK has fallen to its lowest level since 1996. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that – you’ll have doubtless noticed the improvements in social capital, trust and general wellbeing yourself.

How, exactly, does income inequality cause anything?

Because that is how things work according to The Spirit Level , the 2009 bestseller which claimed that almost everything is connected to inequality. Through a series of scatterplots, the social scientists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett sought to prove that ‘more equal’ countries do better on everything from life expectancy to recycling while the benighted ‘less equal’ countries endure higher rates of murder, teen births, drug use and infant

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