There are times when argument in favour of change becomes irresistible.

Frequently change is driven by a plethora of headlines based on reports based on data showing why it should happen.

The current zeitgeist seems to be that we must address inequality. 

For example, this week the annual World Economic Forum event takes place when the ‘great and good’ converge on in Davos, Switzerland.

The intention of Davos is that delegates, consisting of global leaders and campaigners, discuss urgent issues. This year inequality is one though it has been on the agenda in the past with limited success in terms of real change.

However, what seems different this year is that many are stating their concern that rising inequality presents risk to everyone including those who have most to lose; the wealthy.

As they campaigners for greater equality argue, unless proactive and radical policies are implemented, there is a risk to the very system that creates the ability to earn money in the first place.

There are alternative views of how to measure inequality but among most commentators it is widely accepted that access to wealth and the ability to earn is essential.

Crucially, data shows that the world is becoming a place in which the gap between the rich and poor is increasing; especially in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

One of the messages delegates will hear at this year’s Davos is that average income among the wealthiest 10% countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is now nine times greater than among the poorest 10%.

The co-chair of this year’s Davos, Oxfam's executive director Winnie Byanyima, believes that global inequality is “simply staggering” and will use the event to argue for immediate action.

Byanyima will use an Oxfam report Wealth: Having it all and wanting more which shows that 48% of global wealth is currently owned by richest 1%.

This report predicts that that by 2020 this elite 1% will own 54% of global wealth.

Moreover, evidence is presented to demonstrate that the wealth of the world’s 80 wealthiest billionaires (£1.9trillion, roughly £1.25 trillion) is equal to bottom 50% of rest of world.

Additionally in the last four years these 80 billionaires have seen their wealth rise by $600 billion whilst the poorest 50% of the world have experienced a decline of $750 billion.

This is not good because wealth creation is about ensuring that those who are poorer, and spend relatively more of their income, are given the incentive to purchase ‘aspirational’ goods produced by wealthy countries such as here in the UK.

This, of course, is the way the ‘merry-go-round’ of global capitalism operates and anything undermining its effectiveness in the long-run is not good.

Some might suggest that unfortunate as this is, what goes on in the rest of the world is not a problem that we can address.

The thing is, there is plenty of evidence showing that inequality is something that bests us in the UK and that what the Oxfam report indicates applies here in the UK.

In the BBC 2 programmes The Super-Rich and Us shown in the last couple of weeks Jacques Peretti explained that this country has become a favoured destination for billionaires who are part of the elite one per cent of the world’s richest.

Peretti was able to elicit views from some who have benefitted from a system that has allowed them to become fabulously wealthy; a system that  was advocated as a way to make us all better off through what is called the “trickle-down effect”.

These individuals admitted that what has actually happened is precisely the opposite and on average we’ve become poorer.

Peretti also presented evidence of the way in which overseas investors have purchased property in UK, primarily in London and the South East, and which has meant that many first-time buyers are effectively excluded from owning their own home.

The property-owning democracy created under Margaret Thatcher is now a dream for those workers in the capital on average salaries and who do not have access to large deposits.

Peretti asserts that foreign investments in property – all-too-frequently being sold off by cash-strapped local authorities – will alter this country from one of being mainly property owners to one in which the only option is to rent.

Though there may be a degree of journalistic licence in what Peretti suggests, there is no doubt that much of the social change achieved in the last century is being swept away.

Moreover, Peretti shows that the divide between the North and South of the UK is widening.

Thinktank Centre for Cities, has just published a report analysing data from 64 British demonstrating this phenomenon.

The best performing cities tend to be in the South though there are exceptions such Coventry which makes it into the top ten.

Birmingham is significantly only 50th out of 64.

What the Centre for Cities’ 2015 Cities Outlook report argues is that unless something is urgently done to address the gap we are in danger of having a national economy that operates on two ‘tiers’ that are, to all intents and purposes, geographical.

One very salutary statistic presented in contained in  2015 Cities Outlook this is that for every 12 new private sector jobs created in cities in the South of England since 2004 one private sector job disappears in the rest of Britain.

This is a not a new trend and effectively commenced in the aftermath of the decline of manufacturing in the 1980s.

‘Big bang’, when financial services and banking was deregulated, has created a sector that dominates the UK economy at the expense of traditional industries such as engineering and manufacturing which have always tended to be located in the North and here in the Midlands.

That London and the South East, largely based on the service sector, dominate the economy is widely acknowledged to be unhealthy.

Indeed, the coalition government on coming to office declared that there was an urgent need to create better ‘balance’ and gave Lord Heseltine the task of examining ways to achieve this.

Lord Heseltine’s report No Stone Unturned was well received but has not created the radical change needed in to allow tax to be collected and spent locally by those with expertise and understanding.

This needs to corresponding devolution which, after the Scottish Independence referendum has received a major boost.

Maybe Centre for Cities’ 2015 Cities Outlook will cause our political leaders to re-examine the recommendations contained in No Stone Unturned; particularly with respect to developing the required skills and an appropriate infrastructure.

However, past experience does not give too much optimism and as the conclusion to the Centre for Cities  report makes clear, “Despite a consistent political commitment from all parties to improve the relative economic performance of places outside of the south, the gap between cities in the south and cities in the rest of the UK has increased, not diminished.”

Given the impending general election those in cities in the north of Britain, such as here in Birmingham, need to make the case for change.

The next government must be willing to embrace changes to investment and planning that aligns with the objective of creating long-term strategic and forming the basis of cities that have improved economic success.

As many, including myself have consistently argued, we need to place greater emphasis on rebuilding our manufacturing expertise that was so thoughtlessly undermined in the 1980s.

Any changes implemented to achieve this objective cannot happen a moment too soon for cities such as Birmingham.