The mass movement supporting Palestine represents potential political power that the left must now embrace as central to its strategy, writes HUGH LANNING, ahead of this Saturday’s Socialism or Barbarism day school in London
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Christmas Day in the Workhouse: the Tory dream
From Raab to Rees-Mogg, STEPHEN ARNELL observes how modern Conservatives yearn for the return of the brutal institutions where the poor were imprisoned and punished for their plight
Health Secretary Wes Streeting taking £53k from Tory-linked recruiter and outsourcer Peter Hearn’s OPD Group is a great example of how Labour’s rich donors shape policies targeting the poor – not their wealth, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
MAT COWARD recalls the communist and pacifist aristocrat whose commitment made a difference in the Spanish civil war, the Blitz and WWII Europe
Two months into Donald Trump’s second run as president, what can we glean about his policies towards Latin America so far, asks TIM YOUNG, ahead of this Saturday’s Socialism or Barbarism day school in London
Xenophobic hysteria over the statistically insignificant number of small-boat crossings deliberately conceals how capitalism manipulates population flows for profit — if we can explain that, we’ll beat the right, argues NICK WRIGHT
JOGINDER BAINS argues that the infamously cruel and calculated mass murder of Indians blocked into a public square and fired upon by the British Indian Army still faces a reckoning
The annual Fenner Brockway Lecture, hosted by Liberation, was delivered this year by Peter Mertens, Chair of the Workers’ Party of Belgium. STEVE BISHOP reflects on some of the highlights of Mertens’ address
IT MAY surprise readers, but the workhouse, the grim symbol of Dickensian misery, was only finally abolished in 1930, with some locally controlled establishments still receiving “clients” until 1948.
There’s a fair few of these buildings still surviving (obviously for other usage); so, at this merry time of year, let’s have a look at the history of the workhouse — and those Tories who have unsurprisingly expressed a keen desire to see them return.
“And the Union workhouses,” demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
“Both very busy, sir…”
“Those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843)
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