Ten years ago today, on 14th September 2007, Northern Rock customers were forming long angry queues outside the beleaguered bank’s branches. It would turn out to be an historic turning point. Within a year, the whole world financial system was teetering on the verge of collapse, and together with it, the capitalist system. Rob Sewell analyses the beginning of the Great Recession, one decade on.

For all of Theresa May’s strong words about taking on the “excesses and irresponsibility” of the “fat cat” bosses, it is clear that the Tories are still very much in the pocket of big business and are unwilling to fight against the scourge of low pay and low productivity. Instead, we see hand outs for the rich and wage cuts for the rest.

From time to time, governments charged with managing the crisis-ridden capitalist system like to pretend that they have something called an industrial strategy: a grand universal plan for managing and developing production in the so-called ‘national interest’. But, as Steve Jones explains, there is no way forward within the confines of capitalism.