John McDonnell is right: a service economy needn’t be a servant economy

Plans for a shorter working week - or even for guaranteed employment - can offer a way out of the casualised rat race

Britain's economy has long since made the shift from manufacturing things to providing services. Now there is a danger that this service economy is becoming a servant economy.

That is the view of the economics professor and biographer of John Maynard Keynes, Lord Skidelsky. He worries our attitude to work has hardened to a point where a cadre of managers and professionals is charged with bossing around an increasingly casualised workforce - one that is forced to contort domestic lives to suit the whims of those in charge and the profit motive.

So much more needs to happen. The basic costs of living, which drive workers to scramble for money, need to come down