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
Latest editorial
Against dire odds, Venezuela has made 2022 a success
Political and economic stability is back and shortages are being addressed — but although the ‘interim president’ farce and attempts at insurrection are now almost over, US and British sanctions still wreak havoc, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE
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
AS Venezuela enters the latter half of President Nicolas Maduro’s second term in office, the time is ripe for an overview of where the country currently stands, especially regarding ongoing attempts from the US and its allies (including the British government) to force regime change.
Since 2017, in pursuit of an anti-Maduro uprising in Venezuela, the US has levied an oil embargo, financial and secondary sanctions and a range of other measures targeting sectors such as banking, mining and food imports, amounting to a blockade akin to that imposed against Cuba since the 1960s.
As the blockade tightened, the impact on the lives of ordinary Venezuelans, particularly the poor, the sick and the elderly, became devastating, with far-reaching effects, leading to more than 40,000 deaths in 2017-18 alone. It was then cruelly extended at the time of the Covid pandemic.
Similar stories
The global left must be unwavering in it is support for Venezuela as Washington increases its aggression, and clear-eyed about the West’s cynical motives for targeting it, says CLAUDIA WEBBE
Colombia’s success in controlling the drug trade should be recognised and its sovereignty respected, argues Dr GLORY SAAVEDRA
US baseless accusations of drug trafficking and the outrageous putting of a bounty on a president of a sovereign country do not bode well, reports PABLO MERIGUET
Two months into Donald Trump’s second run as president, what can we glean about his policies towards Latin America so far, asks TIM YOUNG, ahead of this Saturday’s Socialism or Barbarism day school in London