Israel continues to operate with impunity in what seems to be a brutal and protracted experiment, while much of the world looks on, says RAMZY BAROUD
Scrooge lesson for Boris Johnson
KEITH FLETT believes Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol has a pertinent message for the Tories of 2019

DURING one of the few TV election debates Boris Johnson did manage to appear in, Jeremy Corbyn said that he would give Johnson a copy of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol as a Christmas present.
Needless to say this got the Daily Telegraph going. Melanie McDonagh opined that there was nothing socialist about Dickens or about the book in particular.
She was certainly right about that but as several comments underlined she had failed to grasp the point that Dickens, and indeed Corbyn, was actually making.
More from this author

KEITH FLETT revisits the 1978 origins of Britain’s May Day bank holiday — from Michael Foot’s triumph to Thatcher’s reluctant acceptance — as Starmer’s government dodges calls to expand our working-class celebrations

From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT

Facing economic turmoil, Jim Callaghan’s government rejected Tony Benn’s alternative economic strategy in favour of cuts that paved the way for Thatcherism — and the cuts-loving Labour of the present era, writes KEITH FLETT

Starmer’s slash-and-burn approach to disability benefits represents a fundamental break with Labour’s founding mission to challenge the idle rich rather than punish the vulnerable poor, argues KEITH FLETT