We too often hear about red tape but what they mean is the vital rights of workers.

Voting to go on strike is not a decision working people take lightly and is always accompanied by a strong sense of injustice at work. The impact of losing a day's pay is significant, not least for those in the lowest paid jobs who are already on the tightest budgets.

The TUC's new slogan 'a future that works' sets a profound challenge. Austerity and rapid deficit reduction is failing in its own terms, but even at its best it is short-sighted, muddle-through politics with no vision of a new economic model.

Britain is a textbook case of how growing inequality leads to economic crisis. The years before the crash were marked by a sharp rise in remortgaging and the growth of 0% balance transfer credit cards. By 2008 the UK had the highest ratio of household debt to GDP of any major economy.

I'd be happy to have regular face-to-face meetings at Downing Street with David Cameron to argue the case for alternative economic policies.

I do know what it's like to worry about bills, I do know what it's like to worry about even finding a child-minder, never mind paying them.

With real wages still falling for many, people are increasingly being forced to use their credit cards, their dwindling savings, or take out payday or doorstep loans if they need to buy anything beyond the most everyday of items.