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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David Aaronovitch follows in the footsteps of Paul Mason
The befuddled Times journo takes a swipe at Corbyn. NICK WRIGHT explains
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
THE columnist David Aaronovitch — who misses no opportunity to remind us of his apostasy — flaunts his (now rather remote) communist student past as a signifier of his authority as an anti-communist. This is a rewarding occupation in the lucrative milieu of Times journalism.
Thus we find him this week discussing the paradox that, although many of the Labour Party’s newer members don’t share Jeremy Corbyn’s long history of antipathy to the European Union, he retains their loyalty, affection and their confidence in his leadership.
Perhaps it hasn’t dawned on Aaronovitch that, although they wouldn’t habitually look for it in a Murdoch journalist, the maintenance for decades of a set of unshakeable principles is precisely what people find admirable in a politician.
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