“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,” faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

“Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business.”

This passage from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is no doubt of its time, but it arguably holds more relevance this during these winter months than ever before as we continue through a cost of living crisis where the poor suffer and the rich continue to get richer.

In the press over recent weeks Mick Lynch, the General Secretary of the RMT, has been painted as the ‘Mick Grinch’ due to the strike action called over the festive period against low pay, compulsory redundancies, and poor working conditions.

But it is not the Grinch who is set to spoil this Christmas, but Scrooge-like figures who are more than happy to make profit off the misery of hard working people up and down the country simply trying to make ends meet.

The profit made by train operating companies since the beginning of the pandemic has been immense, taking millions in profit and paying out vast sums of money to shareholders.

All the while they are attempting to force workers, who kept them running throughout the pandemic, to take a pay cut and water down their terms and conditions.

The strikes will regrettably cause disruption for working people up and down the country – this is the inevitable result of a strike that wants to make an impact. But this is a strike not just for rail workers, but for all working people.

Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives have been vocal about their desire to dismantle the rights of working people to organise, attempting to push through the most significant curbs to workers’ rights for decades, bang in the middle of a cost of living crisis at the end of over a decade of stagnant wages.

Sadly, it is unlikely that Sunak will be visited by three ghosts who can reveal to him the error of his ways as happened to Scrooge on Christmas Eve night. But by standing by the striking workers from all sectors we can fight for a fairer and brighter future for ordinary men and woman across the country in the new year and beyond.

This article was originally published in the Northumberland Gazette as one of Ian Lavery MPs Bi-weekly columns.