From London’s holly-sellers to Engels’s flaming Christmas centrepiece, the plum pudding was more than festive fare in Victorian Britain, says KEITH FLETT
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Hard truths and the Covid crisis
As millions become aware that capitalism cannot of itself generate the impulse to solve the problems posed by pandemic, then the drive to find an alternative grows stronger, argues NICK WRIGHT
DESPERATE MEASURES: Anti-Covid fumigation in a poor neighborhood of Harare, Zimbabwe, last Monday
Once the bustling heart of Christian pilgrimage, Bethlehem now faces shuttered hotels, empty streets and a shrinking Christian community, while Israel’s assault on Gaza and the tightening grip of occupation destroy hopes of peace at the birthplace of Christ, writes Father GEOFF BOTTOMS
From a lockdown digital project to a vital tool for class solidarity, ROBERT POOLE and HENRY FOWLER reflect on half-a-decade of struggle
After years hidden away, Oldham’s memorial to six local volunteers who died fighting fascism in the Spanish civil war has been restored to public view, marking both a victory for campaigners and a renewed tribute to the town’s proud International Brigade heritage, says ROB HARGREAVES
The June 2025 attacks on Iran have heightened the risk of a wider war, exposed the fiction of a rules-based international order and left ordinary Iranians trapped between external aggression and internal repression, says the Committee for Defence of Iranian People’s Rights
While pretending to seek peace, Europe is heading toward a collision course with Russia – using security guarantees, troop deployments, expropriation and censorship as tools, writes SEVIM DAGDELEN
A WWI hero, renowned ornithologist, medical doctor, trade union organiser and founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain all rolled in one. MAT COWARD tells the story of a life so improbable it was once dismissed as fiction
IF NOTHING else the precipitous fall in share prices might concentrate the minds of our ruling class on the growing dangers that a new and more deadly mutant virus presents.
South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana and Eswatini have been added to Britain’s red list, in the hope that the omicron Covid strain can be shut out.
People from these states are compelled to quarantine for 10 days and flights into Britain from these places are now banned.
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Starmer sabotaged Labour with his second referendum campaign, mobilising a liberal backlash that sincerely felt progressive ideals were at stake — but the EU was then and is now an entity Britain should have nothing to do with, explains NICK WRIGHT
Our housing crisis isn’t an accident – it’s class war, trapping millions in poverty while landlords and billionaires profit. To solve it, we need comprehensive transformation, not mere tokenistic reform, writes BECK ROBERTSON
The left must avoid shouting ‘racist’ and explain that the socialist alternative would benefit all
GAWAIN LITTLE argues that the prolonged economic crisis we have been experiencing presents opportunities for a working-class fightback