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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Charlotte Despard: suffragist, communist, Irish republican
Taking up social work after being widowed transformed a Victorian liberal into a lifelong fighter for causes as wide-ranging as Sinn Fein and Indian independence to the right of women to drink in pubs, writes MAT COWARD
ICON OF STRUGGLE: Charlotte Despard speaks to a crowd in Trafalgar Square, June 1910
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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
THE right to a pint was one of the campaigns taken up by the Women’s Freedom League during the first world war. Wartime saw an influx of female customers into Britain’s pubs.
Many women had spare money for the first time, as they had taken over higher-paid industrial jobs previously held by the men who were now away fighting.
Besides, a couple of hours in a warm, friendly pub must have been a lot more enticing than spending a lonely evening at home, worrying about or even mourning the missing husband, brother or son.
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