forestcat, meanwhile, points out the interesting contemporary parallels: "All Dickens novels can claim the distinction of being relevant today (politics, banking, poverty, status etc), but in my view Bleak House is his best, most wide-ranging, most insightful treatment of his recurring themes.
Brown urged people to vote Labour to end the bedroom tax, food bank poverty, zero-hours contracts and the neglect of the NHS.
It talks about the "tall buildings" as a symbol of the "transnational corporation", and streets as home to banks, poverty, activists and politicians.
Food bank poverty will worsen as the "hardworking" are increasingly the benefit-dependent "scroungers", as the working poor need more credits and housing benefit to bridge the gap between rising rents and cost of living.
"We will not be governed by the Bank, we will not be governed by imperialism", we chanted, "and here are the terms of the Bank: poverty, hunger and rising prices". The IMF and the World Bank have for years been pushing the neoliberal measures implemented by Mubarak and his governments, piling praise on him for his courage and achievements.
Mr Brown said only a Labour government would "immediately deal with food bank poverty, zero-hours poverty, inequality and the NHS", warning that large numbers of SNP MPs could mean "months of constitutional chaos".
In 2014, in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gallup, we set off on a year-long journey to the heart of the debate on banking and poverty reduction.
The work and pensions minister, Lord Freud, this month insisted there was no evidence of a link between rising food bank use and the Coalitiongovernment's welfare changes, a claim subsequently challenged by food banks and poverty campaigners and the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.
For all that, his impact on the Bank and poverty is unclear.
But the Bank's poverty line is calculated at purchasing-power parity exchange rates, not market exchange rates.
Yes, food banks and poverty pay are terrible blights, but they affect only a relatively small sliver of the population, who are in any case less likely to vote.
