Today is Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday – and his bicentenary is rightfully to be celebrated the world over. Dickens is certainly the greatest novelist of the 19th Century and perhaps of all time.  His tales still enchant us and capture our imaginations.  Many of them contain scenes or characters that still force...

Matthew Elliot, who founded the Taxpayers’Alliance, has an interesting opinion piece in the Daily Mail today (20/01/12), on the need to address the issue of benefit tourism.  As Matthew writes, migrants should “Come here to work, not to claim benefits”.  Matthew’s “hook” is a study published by Chris Grayling...

Twenty years ago at Chiswick Town Hall in West London, on the 17th January 1992, I debated Adam Buick of the Socialist Party of Great Britain on the subject of the impossibility of socialism. (This debate is one of hundreds of SPGB debates listed on Wikipedia, here.) With the...