“FREEDOM and justice for all are infinitely more to be desired than pedestals for a few,” once said Honore Daumier, the legendary French cartoonist and caricaturist, in what is movingly reminiscent of Labour’s rallying cry, under Jeremy Corbyn, “for the many not the few.”

To illustrate what he meant, in 1831 Daumier “put” the king Louis-Philippe on a pedestal only to mercilessly ridicule him, to much popular acclaim.

The cartoon of the monarch, in the comic journal La Caricature, depicted him as the hideously gluttonous Gargantua, a household personage in France and protagonist of the 16th century satire by Francois Rabelais.

Cartoon: Lewis Marsden

It caused the unpopular royal a fit of apoplexy and earned Daumier six months in the clink.

Daumier’s rebellious spirit is alive and kicking among Morning Star cartoonists who courageously put their necks above the parapet every day of the week, offering us the joy of sharp ridicule and healthy mockery of those who use power against the interest of the people.

We share here a modest festive selection of their work and remain forever indebted to them for their generosity and solidarity.

And Daumier? Much like Morning Star cartoonists he stuck by his principles and remained unbowed for the rest of his life, a painful thorn in the elite’s side.

Invited to address a dodgy, by today’s standards, anniversary, he memorably swayed off-message: “Even more important than the discovery of Columbus, which we are gathered together to celebrate, is the fact that the general government has just discovered women,” (most likely Daumier was referring to the 1850 Act extending education to girls which would deliver new generations of female readers and writers).

It isn’t clear if it led to the round of applause it clearly deserved.

In latter years when impoverished and with a failing eyesight he adamantly declined the Legion of Honour twice.