Franz Kafka in North West Leicestershire

From BBC News:

Barbara Skedd was in "absolute horror" when she opened a letter addressed to her executors offering them condolences on her death.

The 74-year-old received a letter to her Ibstock home, in Leicestershire, from North West Leicestershire District Council in May to update its council tax records following the family's "recent bereavement".

And that's not all:

Skedd said she was in tears after the initial shock of reading that she had died in the council letter, dated 21 May.

She said anger then followed when she discovered all her benefit money, including her Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB), pension and pension credit - had been frozen.

"Everything stopped dead," she told the BBC.

"I've not had money to buy food, no money to put petrol in my car. I can't do anything or go anywhere."

There's more:

She contacted the government department several times to correct the issue and was told an officer would visit her to confirm she was alive, she added.

"That horrified me to be honest," she said.

"I said, 'I'm talking to you. What more proof do you need?'"

Skedd said since the visit she has had "no explanation, no apologies, nothing" from the DWP.

"Just tell me why it all happened," she said.

Market Harborough, 1927: A Christmas Day treat for tramps

Here's a seasonal story from 1927 – from the Christmas Eve edition of the Leicester Mercury to be precise.

Treat for Tramps

Police Chief as Host at Market Harborough

The quaint and picturesque old Grammar School at Market Harborough, which is partially built on wooden piers, and stands near the parish church, will be the banqueting Hall of road tramps on Christmas Day.

Feveral years now a woman in the town has interested herself in bringing some comfort and joy each Christmas to the men who tramp the roads.

Supt. Robertson, with this financial help, will entertain the tramps to breakfast and dinner.

He expects about 40 guests, all of them men who are wayfarers whose life is spent on the road and in common lodging houses.

Breakfast will be at 9 o'clock and dinner at 1 o'clock.

I find a police superintendent doing that on Christmas Day rather impressive.

Here's the inevitable picture of the Old Grammar School. I blogged about an echo of the days of tramps and tramping last month.

The Joy of Six 1443

"Companies that have collaborated with immigration enforcement agencies in various ways to aid Trump’s mass deportation initiative – whether through allowing ICE to raid their parking lots, taking on contracts with DHS, or a variety of other actions – are starting to feel the rumblings of a consumer revolt." Adrian Carrasquillo says a backlash Is brewing against companies that help Trumps's ICE.

Rowena Mason maps the depressing journey of Motability cuts from right-wing social media to Rachel Reeves' budget.

Matt Simon finds that urban farms and gardens ease food insecurity, boost mental health and create communities.

"Getting Franklin’s story right is crucial, because she has become a role model for women going into science. She was up against not just the routine sexism of the day, but also more subtle forms embedded in science – some of which are still present today." Matthew Cobb and Nathaniel Comfort argue that the role of Rosalind Franklin in the discovery of DNA is still misunderstood.

"By the early 1940s, Watson had also become increasingly uncomfortable about the methods used in dairy and egg production, and so began to exclude all animal-based foodstuffs from his diet." Margaret Brecknell introduces us to Leicester's Donald Watson, the founder of the modern vegan movement.

Frank Collins reviews the 1947 film It Always Rains on Sunday. He says its director, Robert Hamer "seems to have regularly fought a corner for women working in film at Ealing, a studio often criticised for its very male view point of the world, and [Googie] Withers is a strong presence in many of his films.

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"Away from the headlines, families in poverty are preoccupied with the very hard work of getting by on low-incomes. Their daily realities are routinely distressing and dehumanising: trying to decide whether to prioritise one child’s need for new school shoes over their brother’s coat which no longer fits. Or leaving an older child to look after their younger sister while they nip to the food bank; not wanting their children to experience the indignity and shame they feel on crossing the church hall’s doors." Ruth Patrick calls on the government to bin the two-child benefit cap.

Richard Kemp reminds us of something important: You can like, work with and respect a person whose political beliefs differ from yours.

Elizabeth Spiers misses the early years of blogging: "If you wanted people to read your blog, you had to make it compelling enough that they would visit it, directly, because they wanted to. And if they wanted to respond to you, they had to do it on their own blog, and link back. The effect of this was that there were few equivalents of the worst aspects of social media that broke through. If someone wanted to troll you, they’d have to do it on their own site and hope you took the bait because otherwise no one would see it."

"A linguistic panic has swept America in recent months, corrupting our youth, annoying our teachers and leaving countless adults hopelessly confused. The question that has sparked the uproar: what, exactly, does it mean when an otherwise upstanding young person blurts out the phrase 'six-seven'?" Matthew Cantor is down with the kids.

"In England, the Cotswolds and Wessex supported an organicist version of Englishness in the interwar period, defined by its 'Westernness' against a ‘south-east metropolitan zone’, and Cornwall has also been understood as a place of difference which, with its distinctive national identity, has made it both familiar and yet potentially threatening to English unity." Gareth Roddy discusses the hold that the Western has on the imagination of all four nations of the British Isles.

Ian Richardson visits the National Railway Museum in York.

The crisis of hardship calls for action beyond the welfare system

“Children shared harrowing accounts of hardship, with some in almost Dickensian levels of poverty. They don’t talk about ‘poverty’ as an abstract concept but about not having the things that most people would consider basic: a safe home that isn’t mouldy or full or rats, with a bed big enough to stretch out in, ‘luxury’ food like bacon, a place to do homework, heating, privacy in the bathroom and being able to wash, having their friends over, and not having to travel hours to school.”

That’s the children's commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza talking to the Guardian today about her report Growing up in a low-income family: Children’s experiences.

Dame Rachel is surely right when she tell the newspaper that the two-child benefit limit must be scrapped. But so deep is the “crisis of hardship” her report reveals that I doubt the welfare system alone can resolve it.

In recent years society has become more and more unequal. Executive pay raises ahead – apparently mundane British managers are constantly on the point of being poached by multinational corporations – while lower down the scale many employees have not seen an increase in real terms since the Credit Crunch of 2008.

To reverse some of this trend, government could look to an increase in the higher rate of income tax and a wealth tax to raise the funds to cut the basic rate or increase the tax allowance. This wouldn't help the poorest, which is why increasing benefits is important, but there are many people in work who are still struggling to get by.

I am struck, too, by the appalling housing conditions  the report reveals. I assume that this accommodation is rented and mostly in the private sector, though there is also poor housing in the public sector.

Landlords have a duty to ensure the properties they rent out are fit for human habitation, but clearly some are getting away with breaking this law. Is it because local authorities are too stretched to take them to court? Certainly, if the onus is placed on impoverished tenants to bring cases, the law is unlikely be enforced.

Yes, we've ended up at my new favourite bugbear, landlordism.

Ed Davey takes aim at Keir Starmer and the BBC

Embed from Getty Images

Keir Starmer risks turning into "continuity Rishi Sunak" and the BBC has Nigel Farage on so often that it risks becoming his mouthpiece - "and this is a guy who wants to destroy them".

You can read these views from Ed Davey in an exclusive interview he granted Peter Walker of the Guardian.

After listing the deficiencies of government policy on health, welfare and defence, he turns to Starmer's performance as a leader:

"There needs to be something that people can get behind. He needs people to understand where we’re going. And I don’t think anyone, even his own party, have a real feel for where he’s going."

A Starmer supporter may ask how a Liberal Democrat chancellor would finance the extra spending implicit in Ed's criticisms, but it's clear that this government is going to have to increase taxation before the next election. 

Ed could call for tax increases or simply say they are inevitable. Vince Cable had a neat trick of sounding as though he was above politics while being very political, and Ed comes close to adopting such an approach in this interview.

And on the BBC is undoubtedly right:

On the rise of Reform, Davey argued that one factor was the disproportionate coverage given by the BBC to Nigel Farage and his party, something he said was "just completely disproportionate". 

"I come to this debate as essentially someone who supports the BBC," he said. "But I fear that they’re allowing themselves to be seen, by some at least, as an organ of Reform. They seem to bend over backwards to please Nigel Farage. They’re almost like a mouthpiece for Nigel Farage, he’s on so much, and this is a guy who wants to destroy them."

The Joy of Six 1381

"Any real 'change' promised in Labour’s manifesto has been betrayed by a continuity with tired and damaging tropes of deserving and undeserving people. This is contributing to the sense, a year in, that this Labour government is merely repeating past government failures rather than striking out in a new direction." George Newth identifies the paradox at the heart of Keir Starmer's first year in power.

Aisha K. Gill sets out how we can make sure that the new grooming gangs inquiry is the last.

Andrea Pitzer on why we shouldn't talk about 'Alligator Alcatraz': "It’s not just a new prison, Alcatraz or otherwise. I visited four continents to write a global history of concentration camps. This facility’s purpose fits the classic model: mass civilian detention without real trials targeting vulnerable groups for political gain based on ethnicity, race, religion or political affiliation rather than for crimes committed."

"While terms like 'gaslighting' have existed in therapeutic practice for decades or longer, most only started to become common lingo within the past few years, fuelled by use on social-media platforms. One viral Reddit post or TikTok video is all it takes for the masses to latch onto a previously overlooked word." Angela Haupt picks 10 such terms and explains their precise meaning, which can soon be lost when they escape the consulting room.

"Despite extensive state support for over-the board chess, the longed-for international ascendancy was never to return. Furthermore, no significant new talents emerged apart possibly from Klaus Junge; as Taylor Kingston shows, this contrasts tellingly with the Soviet Union whose policies quickly generated a massive growth in registered players, as well as world-beating players who would become dominant after the war." Tim-Jake Gluckman reviews a new book on chess in the Third Reich.

Dan Liebke considers the overlap between cricket and comic books, and asks if Ben Stokes is Alan Moore.

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Sienna Rogers says No. 10 sleepwalked into a crisis on welfare cuts: "The media rounds of ministers only deepened the frustration of dissatisfied MPs. Cabinet members repeatedly stated that the threshold changes to PIP eligibility were about getting people back into work, yet employment does not preclude receiving PIP; in fact, PIP was seen by the rebels as a key way of enabling disabled people to work."

Jenna Corderoy and Peter Geoghegan report that British police forces are hiding their collaboration with the US spying technology firm Palantir: "In both 2024 and 2025, multiple FOI requests about Palantir’s police contracts  - including from Liberty and the Good Law Project - were referred to the CRU [Central Referral Unit], which advised forces to withhold information."

"The shifting sands of politics are making electoral reform more likely. But almost certainly not before the 2030s. And much will depend on how the party system evolves in the years to come." Alan Renwick reacts to the rising support for electoral reform in opinion polls.

Russia is waging a silent war across Europe, not with tanks, but with propaganda, disinformation, AI and political influence, says Tetiana Toma.

"Like many enduring classics, Jaws - while in essence a rootin-tootin creature feature - is ideologically malleable, capable of meaning different things at different times. Is it a post-Watergate rumination on political malfeasance? A comment on laissez-faire capitalism? With the film now 50 years old, this month marking its half-centenary anniversary, it surprises me that more hasn’t been made about it as a commentary on responses to the climate crisis, given how strikingly this fits with its core messages." Luke Buckmaster argues that Jaws predicted the politics of climate inaction.

Elizabeth Ammon lists six things we learnt from the first test against India.

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"The government’s planned disability benefit cuts could affect the majority of current working-age claimants with ischaemic heart disease, inflammatory arthritis, hip and knee disorders and Crohn’s disease, according to official figures revealed to Big Issue." Chaminda Jayanetti analyses data on the likely impact of the cuts.

Ella Cockbain interviews a representative of SPACE (Stop & Prevent Adolescent Criminal Exploitation) about the authorities' inadequate response to recruitment of children into serious crime: "Nobody’s trying to look beyond that to see the child’s victimisation as the source of their criminality. We’re not asking, why has this child got drugs? Why is this child miles away from home? Why does the story begin where it suits the police – with the child’s criminal act – rather than showing the problem in its entirety?"

Hans Broekman took his school from the private to the public sector. Here he recommends a series of measures the government could take to encourage more schools to do the same.

"From the point, in February 2024, when directors began to tell authors that cash flow difficulties would result in postponed payment, Unbound continued to spend on everything but authors – including the Boundless Substack magazine, launched this January. And the company continued to solicit pledges and sell to readers right up to March 2025." The Bookseller prints a letter from more than 30 authors who published with Unbound.

Finding a tale of British landed gentry, slavery and sugar plantations, Paul Lashmar traces the source of the Drax family's wealth.

Sven Mikulec praises Peter Yates 1973 film The Friends of Eddie Coyle: "The large portion of this masterfully executed film’s appeal lies on the back of Robert Mitchum, one of the best American actors of all time, who never uses his screen time for any affectations or theatricality, only to deliver the distressing story fully immersed into the character he embodies."

Starmer's coming U-turn on PIPs reminds us of the virtues of a parliamentary system

If Keir Starmer backs down on his planned cuts to Personal Independence Payments, he will be attacked for being weak and making a U-turn, but really it will be a sign that our political system works.

He has put forward a policy that does not command a majority in the House of Commons, so he has found that he can't get it through. This ought to happen more often.

If the Conservatives were better at politics, they would have announced they would vote for the cuts, deepening the split in the Labour Party if Starmer went ahead with them.

But Kemi Badenoch made her party's support conditional upon things Starmer was never going to agree to, so it looks as though he will back down.

Watching developments in the United States, where there appears to be no check on what a rogue president can do, has made me appreciate the virtues of a parliamentary system.

Boris Johnson was bundled out of power by a Commons with a safe Conservative majority when his behaviour became unconscionable, and then the ludicrous Liz Truss followed him after only 49 days later.

We Liberals are happiest when we point out the faults of the British parliament, but we ought to remember its virtues too. 

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"Adults are going hungrier to keep children better fed. The most vulnerable – infants, pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers and others needing special diets - are already starving. The very poorest, those unable to call on better-off relatives, those cut off by military checkpoints, are already wasting away as their internal organs suffer irreparable damage." Alex de Waal on starvation in Gaza.

Ben Jackson says the government must change direction on child poverty: "When governments are remembered after they lose office, their achievements are unforgivingly distilled into a few pithy bullet points. Does Keir Starmer really want one of his bullet points to be that he was the unusual Labour prime minister who presided over an increase in child poverty?"

Rose Dixon reports the success of Iceland's experiment with a four-day working week.

"The men would wait for the Germans to pass over them and then come out at night. Their role was not to fight the Germans face-to-face. Their brief was to hit the supply chain, causing enough chaos to slow down the German advance, blowing fuel and ammunition dumps, destroying railway lines, bridges, and convoys. Local country houses that had been taken as German HQs were to be destroyed and German officers and British collaborators assassinated." Andrew Chatterton explains how the British Resistance would have fought Nazi occupiers.

"Meryl marched into the hotel suite where Hoffman, Benton, and Jaffe sat side by side. She had read Corman’s novel and found Joanna to be 'an ogre, a princess, an ass,' as she put it soon after to American Film. When Dustin asked her what she thought of the story, she told him in no uncertain terms. They had the character all wrong, she insisted. Her reasons for leaving Ted are too hazy. We should understand why she comes back for custody." Michael Schulman tells the story of how Meryl Streep battled Dustin Hoffman, retooled her role and on her first for Kramer vs. Kramer.

Peter Black discovers an Edwardian mystery: The story of Violet's Leap.

10,000 women may have been deported from Britain to Ireland in forced adoption scandal

Women and babies were deported from Britain and incarcerated in Irish state institutions because the mothers were unmarried, reports ITV News after a year-long investigation.

Its report on the scandal covers one such case and then adds:

From 1930 to the late 1970s the numbers making a similar journey were so high, officials in London called them PFIs – ‘pregnant from Ireland’.

The British authorities saw them as a burden on the taxpayer and put pressure on the Irish state to address the situation, while the Catholic Church in Ireland feared the children would grow up in non-Catholic families.

The result was a repatriation scheme – it was supposed to be voluntary – but women have told ITV News they were effectively deported from Britain and their journeys were organised and paid for by the state and the Church.

By analysing official records of the organisations behind forced repatriations, and speaking to experts in this field, ITV News has discovered that as many as 10,000 women and babies may have been deported from Britain to Ireland between 1931 and 1977

The children, now adults, often only found out they were British citizens decades later.

The involvement of the Catholic church does not surprise me: there's nothing like a hierarchical organisation for fostering human wickedness. And churches, like business corporations, tend to behave as badly as they are allowed.

There may even be something about an organisation set up to do good for others that makes it more likely to foster bad behaviour.

I remember a former chief executive at work telling me he had never met such Machiavellian people as when he worked for a health research charity. The reasoning, presumably, is that such a desirable end justifies any means.

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Ed Kiely reviews John Pring's The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence: "DWP officials continue to dissemble when faced with the scale of harm caused by the department, even while pushing out dubious figures to justify the cuts: a recent press release appeared to overstate the increase in incapacity claims by a factor of ten. Labour has shielded the department from serious criticism, expanded its powers and fuelled anti-disabled sentiment with indiscriminate attacks on claimants."

"The media keep reporting that Abrega Garcia was mistakenly or wrongly deported. I get the impulse - journalists ... want to give readers a sense of the injustice. But all of those men were deported wrongly, because they were all denied due process." Jonathan Larsen says the US Democrats must stand up for everyone’s rights.

Sajia Ferdous argues that AI is inherently ageist, which can be costly for workers and businesses.

"It took nearly a decade for officialdom to acknowledge beavers had spread throughout the Tay catchment. When they did, they tried to round them up - to re-extinct them. But Taysiders - many of whom had grown fond of watching them work at dusk - wouldn’t have it. When Scottish Natural Heritage laid traps, some said that locals took to peeing on them, so their scent would warn off the beavers." Adam Ramsay recounts how his parents' adoption of beavers has transformed their upland farm into a rich, biodiverse haven for birds, mammals, fish and amphibians.

"The poor boy looks utterly miserable, as if he wants the ground to open up and swallow him. Or - better - swallow his dad." Sam Wollaston asks why children's football brings out the worst in parents.

Leigh Singer celebrates Annie Hall: "Diane Keaton had co-starred in [Woody] Allen’s two previous films, Sleeper and Love and Death, establishing herself as a deft comedian with a kooky sensibility and offbeat comic timing. But these roles were largely foils for Allen’s protagonist. Annie Hall, however, tailored specifically for her by Allen, is far more substantial."

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Chaminda Jayanetti examines the hidden impact of Labour's disability benefit cuts - from carer's allowance to railcards.

"When they receive the annual service charge statements, they find costs that bear no relation to the services they receive - street lighting for a block of flats, access to facilities they are not allowed to use, or simple paint jobs costing tens of thousands of pounds with no say over who carries out the work or how it is done." Labour MP Kate Osborne says the end of the feudal leasehold system cannot come soon enough.

Seventy years before congestion pricing landed in New York City, Lewis Mumford sounded the alarm on letting automobiles run amok in America’s downtowns. David Zipper tells his story.

Tim Radford reviews The Age of Diagnosis by the neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan: "How do you take on a real set of problems in medicine, concern about which can be seen as conservative-coded, without getting into bed with the vibes-based bores who will bang their hammy fists on tables in prejudiced agreement? The answer is: carefully. O’Sullivan is an excellent, fluid writer, and an eloquent speaker, but I’m bracing myself for braying allyship from right-wing broadcasters during her very well-deserved media appearances."

"At first, we didn’t know why Jamie, the perpetrator of the attack, did it. We knew he wasn't a product of abuse or parental trauma. But we couldn’t figure out a motive. Then someone I work with, Mariella Johnson, said: 'I think you should look into incel culture.'" Jack Thorne on writing Adolescence.

Luka Ivan Jukic casts light on an unexpected corner of European history: Latin remained a live language in Croatia until the middle of the 19th century.

The Tory response to Liz Kendall? She hasn't been nasty enough

Bad as Liz Kendall's announcement was - and it was awful - the Conservative response from Helen Whately was worse:

Where is the fit note reform crucial to stem the flow of people on to benefits? Where is the action on people being signed off sick for the everyday ups and downs of life? Why is the right hon. Lady planning to save only £5 billion when the bill is forecast to rise to over £100 billion? ...

Fundamentally, this is too little, too late. The fact is that £5 billion just does not cut it with a bill so big going up so fast. She needed to be tougher. She should be saying, “No more hard-working taxpayers funding the family next-door not to work, no free top-of-the-range cars for people who do not need them, no more sickfluencers helping people to claim money they do not need.”

I am reminded of Bernice Woodhall, the vicar of Royston Vasey:

“‘And he will give strength to legs that are weak and arms that tremble. The crippled will throw down their crutches and leap up and down in praise of his grace.’ Doesn’t say they need five car parking spaces outside Safeways now does it? They’re always empty, I only nipped in for five minutes to get a bottle of Taboo.”

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Phil Brickell, Labour MP for Bolton West, argues that the rules on foreign donations to political parties must be tightened to help restore voters' confidence in politics.

"Perhaps we should think about the social workhouse, which is productive of stigma, fear, and forcing unwell people into work. This isn't primarily to make money out of the disabled and the ill, but to reinforce the discipline wage labour depends on. Clamping down on benefits is Labour's way of telling their bourgeois backers that the management of class relations is safe with them" A Very Public Sociologist on why Labour won't leave the disabled and long-term sick alone.

"A generation of kids who grew up online, spent lockdown in their bedrooms, and all too often started their first jobs dialling remotely into Zoom meetings, now seems to be actively trying to teach itself to socialise the analogue way." Gaby Hinsliff says gen Z is logging off.

William Ralston visits the Rainham volcano - a waste dump is constantly on fire in East London: "By January 1999, dozens of tipper lorries were hurtling through Rainham every day, on their way to Arnolds Field. Unlike the lorries that would regularly collect gravel from local pits and transport it to construction sites, these ones were not emblazoned with a company name. Their trailers had high metal sides so you couldn’t see what was inside."

"I do remember O’Toole coming up to me. He’s taller than me, and I’m quite tall. And he goes [grabs by the shoulders], “Get into your light, son.” And he picked me up and plonked me where the light was because I wasn’t in the [right spot]. A lot has been said about Peter O’Toole, but he was a fabulous guy." Timothy Dalton reminisces to Vanity Fair.

Andy Marshall has been photographing the churches of Romney Marsh.

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Emma Burnell on the new Conservative leader's poor start: "Badenoch is going to have to do something reasonably soon to show that she has a grip on at least one of the three roles she has. Because the Tories may have made it harder to get rid of her but, as the manoeuvrings of Robert Jenrick show, not all of her party believes it is impossible to do so."

"The coronarvirus outbreak showed the dangers of an inadequate sick pay system. Lots of frontline workers were forced to choose between falling into poverty because they got no or little sick pay, or continue to work and risk spreading the virus." Tim Sharp calls on ministers to act on their expressed view that no one should be faced with such a choice.

Tegwen Haf Parry says the similarities between police uniforms and those worn by people working in many other fields can create confusion about the powers they wield.

"Heinlein filled his fiction with loudmouthed men who claim to be accomplished polymaths. They boss everyone around, make decisions on a whim and ignore advice regardless of the consequences." Jordan S. Carroll argues that Robert Heinlein's Sixties SF novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is the key to understanding Elon Musk's politics.

Ray Newman finds the post-war British new town, as presented in the films of that era, is an uncanny space - heaven, hell or somewhere between, but certainly not quite real.

"How long before the red-ball game becomes properly marginalised by those top-down forces? How long before Ashes cricket is essentially a kind of morris dance meets the Ryder Cup, an exhibition event staged off to one side in strange traditional dress?" Barney Ronay asks if next winter's Ashes series could be the last.

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"The safety net once provided by the social security system and council services has been outsourced to a patchwork of grassroots groups, to the point where meeting basic human needs – being fed, clothed and housed – relies on fundraising in December as well as taxation in April." Frances Ryan welcomes us to Britain’s Victorian Christmas, where volunteers in Santa hats fulfil the basic functions of the state.

Keith Edwards argues that the US Democrats need to give youth its head: "Americans are some of the youngest people in the rich world. Yet our elected leaders are easily the world’s oldest."

Patrick Barkham reports that water voles continue to decline in their distribution across Britain, but there are signs of recovery in 11 key areas.

"A few years ago, on social media, I posted the architectural critic Jonathan Meades' description of Birmingham as 'an almost excessively sylvan place' with 'lavishly green' suburbs. It was laughed at in some corners, so at odds was it with many outsiders’ image of the city as a concrete jungle." Jon Neale says that Birmingham's 19th-century 'guinea gardens' gave the city a split personality that it retains to this day.

"I used to know Mary Norton. I played with her daughter. One day I asked her 'What’s this story you have written about little people who live under the floorboards?' and Mary replied 'It's not about little people who live under the floorboards, it’s about Czechoslovakia.'" Chris Wallis asks if The Borrowers is a children’s fantasy classic or a political allegory.

Amanda Craig celebrates the genius of Joan Aiken: "Darkness, injustice and cruelty underlie Aiken’s stories; packed with vivid characters, each can be read as a critique of capitalism, industrialisation and the class system. Her aristocrats are often villains of the deepest dye, never more so than in The Whispering Mountain ... with its cold, murderous, gold-obsessed Marquess of Malyn, searching for a lost tribe of goldsmiths living inside a Welsh volcano."

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"The UK now has the outline of a modern welfare state, but it is increasingly failing to fill in the gaps. Those gaps let far too many people fall through, and the consequences are both individual misery and collective decline." The state should be there when things go wrong in our lives, argues Andrew Sissons.

The most senior former judges in England and Wales have called on the government to reverse the trend of imposing ever longer sentences, giving warning that radical solutions are needed to address the acute crisis in prisons. A briefing from the Howard League for Penal Reform looks at what can be done#.

Robert Saunders reminds us that David Cameron rose without trace: "No prime minister of modern times has been so deeply rooted in the Establishment. None has been so routinely tipped for greatness. And yet few retain such an enduring air of mystery."

Andrés Rodríguez-Pose and Rosalie Henry de Frahan assess the effects of private schooling and school composition on student performance. "Our findings contribute to the growing body of research questioning the comparative advantage of private schools, demonstrating that their perceived superiority often arises from the socio-economic advantages of the students they enroll, rather than the quality of education provided." 

Christina Bollen presents five surprising ways that trees help prevent flooding.

"For Maynard, the old lesson 'be kind to people on the way up, because you'll meet them again on the way down', was, belatedly, about to hit home hard." Graham McGrath on a great stage feud: Bill Maynard vs Derek Nimmo.

To him that hath shall be given: Hilaire Belloc's Mr Petre

Our leaders' appetite for the good things in life, and getting them for free, has put me in mind of a satirical novel I read years ago - Hilaire Belloc's Mr Petre, which was published in 1925.

My hazy recollection was that the hero was taken to be a rich man and so was never asked to pay for anything. Showered with gifts, soon he really was rich.

A contemporary review from the Manchester Guardian fleshes out the plot:

The story begins in 1953 with the return of Mr Peter Blagden from New York, and for a page or two the irony seems to be held in reserve; we have time to think that Mr Belloc could, if he would, give us a very interesting "ordinary" novel. But Mr Blagden loses his memory completely, and from no particular cause; chances combine to identify him with Mr Petre, the great American millionaire. 

So he becomes involved in enormous transactions, and on the strength of an occasional "Exactly" or "I quite understand" his reputation as the most astute man of his time becomes assured. He puts up at the Splendide (or, as the proof-reader leaves it on one occasion the Savoy), and so courted is he that he must bolt to the country sometimes for breathing space.

If he buys everybody follows, and his chance expression of opinion breaks up a luncheon party, everybody rushing for the telephone. Perhaps the loss of memory is a little arbitrary in its working, but it is a good device for the display of Mr Belloc's scornful irony. 

For, of course, everything that Mr Petre says and does is idiotic. A man reputed to have fifty million pounds must be a master-mind, and financiers feel that they must crawl before him or be ruined.

Belloc was Liberal MP for Salford South between 1906 and 1910. Though he was a raving antisemite, his book of political theory The Servile State is worth seeking out. I think of it when I read that the government is to give itself powers to investigate the bank accounts of people receiving welfare benefits.

Another feature of Mr Petre is that, according to that review, it was illustrated by Belloc's great friend G.K. Chesterton.

These days we think of illustrations as suitable for children's books but not fiction written for adults. Yet some of the greatest 19th-century novels were illustrated.

And in Vanity Fair, where the text says one thing and Thackeray's own drawings suggest something more sinister is taking place, we instinctively trust the picture over the words.