Germinal

I have been reading Zola's "Germinal".
Like Jack London's "People of the Abyss" this is a description of the conditions of the working class at the turn of the last century. Although it is based on research, the narrative is itself fictional.
Although it describes in detail the conditions of poverty in which workers in France were living, it also offers a vision of a possible future in which these old conditions will be swept away.
As well as being a month in the Republican French calendar, "Germinal" also suggests a new beginning.
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Damned lies and statistics

The BBC repeat with glee the statistic that one in five pensioners are millionaires. The problem is that the "statistic" is fraudulent.

It refers to the number of pensioners who live in a household which has a value of a million pounds. The pensioner themselves may have access to a value of a million, or half a million or a fraction of a million or just plain nothing.

And yet this is one of the many lies being used to justify cutting the winter fuel allowance.

Never mind that many pensioners will die of hypothermia, they can just be branded "millionaires" and that is the end of any public sympathy.

Ending the winter fuel allowance will also affect the four-fifths of pensioners who are nothing like millionaires but forget about them.

Labour has to take tough decisions. No politicians will die of hypothermia so it is not that tough for them.

OFSED Bullies

The government has made one small step towards stopping OFSTED bullying of teachers but even that is too much for the Tories.

Conservatives argue that parents will be unable to understand a comment about a school that is more than one word long!

Most of us can understand whole sentences. 

Classroom Teacher Manual

Chief Hypocrite

Boris Johnson and the Chief Rabbi think the pathetic reduction in arms for Israel is appalling.
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They give hypocrites a bad name.

Why have neither of them been arrested for hate speech?

Apparently, God wants the Israeli Defence Force to kill children in Gaza. I have my doubts.