It’s almost 30 years since the Black report on inequalities in health in England and Wales, commissioned in 1977 by a Labour government but given a cold reception in 1980 by their Conservative successors. In contrast, we have good reason to hope that WHO will embrace Michael Marmot’s far more ambitious report, commissioned by its former director general, Lee Jong-wook, and delivered to his successor Margaret Chan in Geneva last week.

George Davey Smith has been critical in the past of such reports. His BMJ editorial, with colleagues, about the 1998 Acheson report on health inequalities was less than …