David Lammy was one of five children raised by a single mother in the recession-and-riot-hit Tottenham of the 1980s. Through hard graft, luck and being pushed by a doting mother, Lammy would become the first black Briton to graduate from Harvard Law School and one of the youngest Members of Parliament in 2000.

Today, the recession politics of the 1980s has returned – the next few years will see thousands out of work and last summer saw social unrest return to the streets of Britain’s inner cities. Join Lammy, author of an analysis of the August 2011 riots, Out of the Ashes, as he discusses whether social mobility can survive in the age of austerity?