On day 17 of the bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli Defence Force, over 5,000 people have been killed, including 2,000 children - who almost certainly did not belong to Hamas. But they are wiped out, because Israel's government claims it wants to "wipe Hamas off the face of the earth" an objective which justifies, it says, their continued massacre.

    Perhaps we, the population of Britain, should be grateful to Netanyahu and his fanatical government for helping to reveal the truly abhorrent nature of the political class which rules all of us in the West, whether in the USA, the EU or Britain. They've proved themselves just as abhorrent as the Zionist ultra-right which controls Israel at the moment.

    Sunak and Starmer couldn't wait to join Biden in bloodthirsty support (arms contracts at the ready) for this slaughter in Gaza - and now also the escalation of repression and killing of Palestinians on the West Bank.

    Here, Tory, Labour and Lib-Dem are all "with Israel", while hypocritically crossing themselves and claiming they want "humanitarian" corridors, pauses, etc., etc. But let nobody forget how Starmer also agreed to the "complete siege" of Gaza - no water, electricity, food, medicines, allowed in. The aid trucks now starting to enter Gaza via the Rafah crossing, luckily, didn't need Starmer's permission.

    Last Thursday's Question Time (held in Northern Ireland), on BBC1 was a reminder why scarcely anyone can stomach watching TV these days. In the spirit of blind support for an "eye for an eye", presenter Fiona Bruce insisted that Sinn Fein MP for North Belfast John Finucane, answer the question "do you agree that Hamas must be destroyed?" She repeated this 5 times. And never mind that the audience is meant to ask the questions!

    But Bruce wanted to needle an MP whose party's former armed wing, the IRA, was also designated as "terrorist". She wasn't even doing this to turn the discussion in the direction of the 6-counties' history - the IRA-British talks of 1997-8, which ended in a peace agreement after 30 years of guerilla warfare.

    Finucane was 9 when he saw his Republican lawyer father shot dead by a loyalist terrorist (under the wing of the British Army). He refused to answer. In a roundabout way he asked if it wasn't possible to condemn the terrible actions of the Hamas fighters and still refuse to back the Israeli government's terrible actions? But Bruce just taunted him for not answering and the camera moved to a member of the audience nodding her agreement with Bruce. In other words, this was only about "testing" the panel's support for "Israel".

    Today Israeli ministers say there will be no negotiations over the 200 hostages. Only 4 have been released. They are consciously subverting a prisoner exchange - an aim of the 7 October incursion, which Hamas fighters turned into a horrific killing spree, apparently against the policy of their political leaders. Not that anyone is prepared to point this out, since it doesn't suit the narrative.

    Obviously, the working class in this country has no interest in supporting any kind of terror; neither that of Hamas nor the Israeli army's bombing of Gaza, no matter what the pretext. And neither can it have any truck with the whole spectrum of the West's politicians - but particularly "our own", who stand exposed in all their bloodstained glory, alongside Netanyahu.

Last year there was a record number of people living in extreme poverty in Britain, but - 3.8 million people were living in destitution, that is, unable to stay warm, dry, clean and fed every day. The number has more than doubled in 5 years. A million children are affected.

    This is according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Yes, counting the number of poor relies on a charitable organisation, since the government wouldn't undertake to stare its own appalling record in the face.

    In fact Newham in London has the highest proportion of destitute, with Manchester and Middlesbrough coming 2nd and 3rd: people forced out of their homes and onto the street into homelessness, because they just can't afford their bills. It's the "cost of living crisis" says the Trust, low incomes, rising prices of essentials and high levels of debt. In fact, it's a situation reminiscent of Victorian times: almost two-thirds of people who experienced destitution in 2022 have a disability or a chronic health problem.

    And the context is a welfare system stripped to its bare bones by successive governments. Over half of these destitute households have a weekly benefit income of less than £85 a week. But over a quarter (28%) are not getting any welfare payments at all!

    The government says it's helping by tackling inflation, raising the minimum wage and "helping people into work"... But today, unemployment is rising again.

    The Joseph Rowntree Trust argues that there's a lot more that governments can do - like increase welfare benefits. And that's very true. But it won't change the fundamentals - a capitalist system which relies on a reserve army of unemployed precisely to keep its costs at a minimum and its profits at a maximum: meaning that poverty won't end until capitalism is ended.