The NEU kept children and teachers safe during the pandemic, yet we are disgracefully slandered by the politicians who have truly failed our children by not funding a proper education recovery programme — here’s what is needed, explains KEVIN COURTNEY
Christmas is cancelled: Now it’s time for action, time for sanctions
HUGH LANNING on why our new year task and resolution must be to turn the massive public support and sympathy for Palestine into a veritable political tsunami to shift Western politics
Trade unionists and protesters form a blockade outside weapons manufacturer BAE Systems in Rochester, Kent, in protest over the Israel-Gaza conflict and calling for an immediate ceasefire
The appalling bigotry and bias of London’s police force has been obvious for years – and the police leadership does not appear inclined to do anything about it, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE
As Holyrood elections approach, BRIAN LEISHMAN MP argues that Labour’s time has come — to open a new chapter which puts an end to the years of managed decline
ASSAF TALGAM talks to an Israeli Communist lawmaker about the need to use every tool of democratic and non-violent struggle; how Israeli society has changed since October 7 2023; and the persecution of the left in the parliamentary arena
Apart from a bright spark of hope in the victory of the Gaza motion, this year’s conference lacked vision and purpose — we need to urgently reconnect Labour with its roots rather than weakly aping the flag-waving right, argues KIM JOHNSON MP
In the face of funding cuts, closures and a shift into women’s centres providing criminal justice-only services rather than a holistic approach, RUTH HUNT urges women to protect existing resources, volunteer and build new networks of support
CHRISTMAS is cancelled. The Bethlehem municipality confirmed last month that all festivities have been scrapped ahead of December 25.
“The reason is the general situation in Palestine; people are not really into any celebration, they are sad, angry and upset; our people in Gaza are being massacred in cold blood,” a spokesperson said.
I was in Bethlehem one Christmas Eve and phoned my mother — a good Catholic. She said: “How lovely dear.” I first had to explain that it was Orthodox Christmas Eve — January 5 or Twelfth Night — and the reality of Bethlehem today, rather than the Bethlehem of myth and religion. Walled in and walled off from Jerusalem, shops and hotels closed down — the only tourists were Americans bussed in to the “manger” and out by Israeli tourist companies with commentaries from Israeli guides.
More from this author
How can we claim to be human while our countries still support and defend the massacres in Palestine, asks HUGH LANNING
HUGH LANNING reports on an initiative that will aim at counteracting the anti-Palestine narratives spoon-fed to Western governments and the mass media by Israel’s propaganda machine
Israel’s messianic settler regime has moved beyond military containment to mass ethnic cleansing, making any two-state solution based on differential rights impossible — we must support the Palestinian demand for decolonisation, writes HUGH LANNING
The mass movement supporting Palestine represents potential political power that the left must now embrace as central to its strategy, writes HUGH LANNING, ahead of this Saturday’s Socialism or Barbarism day school in London
