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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Housing: how the Tories carefully erased working-class London
NICK WRIGHT argues that the transformation of once-radical boroughs like Battersea into desirable locations for the well-paid few sums up the story of how housing can be used as a political weapon — by the right and the left
(L to R): Balfron Tower in Tower Hamlets, and the building's architect Erno Goldfinger (left) on the balcony of his flat in the building, where he studied the impact of his design
[Richard Parmiter / Creative Commons]
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
THIS YEAR, Labour took control of the council in the London boroughs of Wandsworth and Westminster. Nearly five decades of Tory control has made these places almost unaffordable for working people on a normal wage.
People today know the Wandsworth Tory council leader from these early times — Christopher “Chopper” Chope — as the “Jurassic era” MP who, more recently, blocked the passage of a private member’s Bill that would have made upskirting a specific offence.
But Chope had another vision — of a gentrified area denuded of Labour voters and the working class in general by a social-cleansing process built around the privatisation of the housing stock.
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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
The left must avoid shouting ‘racist’ and explain that the socialist alternative would benefit all
Xenophobic hysteria over the statistically insignificant number of small-boat crossings deliberately conceals how capitalism manipulates population flows for profit — if we can explain that, we’ll beat the right, argues NICK WRIGHT
Based on his experience of Haringey Council Councillor MARK BLAKE believes only a radical policy rethink will reconnect councils with the alienated constituencies they are supposed to serve