We’re going a day early on links because of Christmas…

The Tories are unstitching the tapestry of our democracy. Last week, John Major was on the radio and I found myself wishing that he was still Prime Minister. I remember the years that John Major was PM and it was bad. I didn’t agree with his policies and I didn’t want him to govern but I did feel that he was a decent (if misguided) human being. David Cameron and George Osborne, they don’t have that. They seem to be completely void of all humanity and seem to have no understanding of the greater good. They will take us back to hypocrisy of the Victorian era where if you didn’t have money, you had no value. And now they are pretty much rigging it in their favour.

An Unbelievable Story of Rape. This is long and difficult but worth reading.

Food banks and giving.

Because that’s what austerity is: a battening down to bare necessities. Goodbye to pleasure and frivolity; top up the calories if you want to survive. That’s where the tinned macaroni cheese comes in – about 390 calories for 45p

Flint, Michigan and lead in the water – I heard about this on the World Service. Lead Poisoning is effectively brain damage in children. It doesn’t sound like an honest mistake when you think about the problems that Flint already has, it sounds like they thought they could get away with it!

Happy Books to cheer you up