Liberal Democrats stand for liberty, the freedom of every individual to make their own decisions about how best to live their lives. We trust people to pursue their dreams, to make the most of their talents and to live their lives as they wish, free from a controlling, intrusive state and a stifling conformity; a free and open society that glories in diversity.

That statement of our principles contained in the Agenda 2020 party consultation paper makes me doubt the ideas of Universal Basic Services and Universal Basic Income, discussed here lately.

“We stand for equality”, continues the declaration of Agenda 2020. Yet UBS and UBI could be argued as likely to reinforce structural inequality in Britain. The benefits might be intended to keep the mass of the population reasonably content in having enough to live on and being looked after, while the rich and privileged might willingly pay for the right to continue to accrue wealth and power in unchallenged peace.

The policy would then be the equivalent of the bread and circuses of Roman Emperors, so Liberal Democrats should shun it. It is too easy for us in our middle-class, educated way to avoid facing the glaring inequalities of our country by offering palliative measures, as we did in lifting poorer people out of income tax but ignoring the poorest who didn’t pay tax at all.

Yet, evidence of the glaring inequalities mounts by the day. It was reported recently via a Freedom of Information request made by Labour’s David Lammy that, between 2010 and 2015, 43% of offers of places at Oxford University were made to privately educated students. Only 7% of British children are privately educated. So continues the upward flow of privilege which leads to top jobs in the City, Parliament, the Judiciary and the most prestigious Media outlets being dominated by the privately educated.

Here today we also now have the staggering information that half the population are in a potentially financially vulnerable situation. “50% of consumers display one or more characteristics that signal their potential vulnerability”, notes the report, Understanding the Financial Lives of UK Adults, published this month by the Financial Conduct Authority after its biggest ever study of households (https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/research/financial-lives-survey-2017pdf). It found that 4.1m people are already in serious financial difficulty, particularly in the 25-34 age group, and that just under 8 million are over-indebted.

Our reaction to these and other studies of growing inequality already noted here (see Kirsten Johnson’s article of October 19) should confirm that Liberal Democrats are valuably different from the rest. But we have to offer more than palliative measures. As our Leader has stated, we must find radical solutions, including reforms to taxation of land, property and inheritance, and a redirection of the tax system to wealth rather than income. Where great wealth continues to accumulate and is not invested in productive capacity it must be challenged. It is up to our party now to produce the proposals that neither of the two big parties has the vision or the commitment to a better future for everyone that the Liberal Democrats offer.

* Katharine Pindar is a long-standing member of the Lib Dems and an activist in the West Cumbrian constituency of Copeland and Workington.