Trade unions need to step up and force a turn in the policies of the labour movement to effectively confront the far-right threat, argues NICK WRIGHT
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The Tories: the party of Scrooge — minus the redemption…
STEPHEN ARNELL looks at 11 Conservatives who could easily have been villains in the pages of a Dickens novel
An actor from the London Touring Players performs the part of Ebenezer Scrooge during a dress rehearsal for a production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol in the ruins of Beaulieu Abbey in Beaulieu, Hampshire, December 13, 2023
As the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish civil war is marked, Teesside campaigners will gather to remember the local men and women who stood against fascism, explains TONY FOX
Whatever differences exist among international sympathisers of the Bolivarian revolution about its current trajectory, they should unite against the imperialist power that is the source of an enforced retreat, argues ROGER D HARRIS
Washington’s inability to subjugate Iran is an example of how it is trying to preserve a regional order that no longer exists, argues RAMZY BAROUD
US financial instability is exposing the limits of a dollar-dominated global economy — and giving the Global South a historic chance to build an alternative, says MURAD QURESHI
Deprivation is a fundamental factor in criminal behaviour that must be addressed but, KENNY MacASKILL argues, there needs to a major rethink in sentencing to tackle overcrowding
Scrooge: “And the Union workhouses. Are they still in operation?”
Charity Collector: “Both very busy, sir...”
Scrooge: “Those who are badly off must go there.”
Charity Collector: “Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
Scrooge: “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
I AM certainly not the first person to mention the similarity, but the Tory Party has increasingly come to resemble Dickens’s famous miser, Ebenezer Scrooge. Indeed, some Conservatives appear to revel in the comparison, as we shall see.
Of course, Scrooge did eventually mend his ways, but only when threatened with the prospect of eternal damnation. The Tories appear confident that the warnings laid down by the Three Ghosts of Christmas don’t apply to them. Quelle surprise.
Some would say that many Tory souls were sold long ago or had atrophied to such an extent that an eternity spent in hellfire was always on the cards.
Meet just a few of the gang, to quote National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989), the “jolliest bunch of A-holes you’ll see this side of the nut house.” Or alternatively, a meeting of the now infamous “five families” group of hard-right Conservative MPs.
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