A study of the moral state of the nation the acid test of this being how we treat the weakest among us. Rabbi Julia Neuberger assesses the situation in the UK from her own unique viewpoint, and draws some challenging and thought-provoking conclusions.

Just as Will Hutton looked at the political landscape at a turning point in Britain, Rabbi Julia takes the moral temperature of the nation by looking at the ways in which we treat the weakest amongst us. The National Health Service, government pensions and asylum seekers all make daily headlines, and here is a writer with the moral authority and mastery of the necessary information to undertake this project. The way we treat the weak and vulnerable members of society has long been an established way to judge how civilised a society is. In this book, Julia looks at the extent to which the elderly are thought a burden, the way we care for the mentally ill, attitudes to asylum seekers, support for ex-offenders as well as the care of children and the future of society in the UK. Her straight-forward approach to what has elsewhere proven highly esoteric, is here written with ease and fluidity and with a style that is highly approachable for those interested in the state of their nation with purely social, rather than academic, motivations.