General secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions GAWAIN LITTLE calls for support and participation in the national partnership organised to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1926 general strike
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The pick ’n’ mix politics of Christmas
Marxist theologian PROFESSOR JAMES CROSSLEY looks at how the story of the birth of Jesus was created from multiple sources and how the political class use and abuse it today
Boris Johnson addresses soldiers after serving Christmas lunch to British troops stationed in Estonia, December 2019
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THE story of the birth of Jesus is found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
While they are both relatively light on the familiar Christmas details, both tell stories of the virgin Mary, Bethlehem and angels (though admittedly angels were understood as militaristic supernatural figures, rather than twee figures of more recent imaginations).
From Matthew’s Gospel we get the unnamed and unnumbered wise men from the east, the gifts (frankincense, gold and myrrh), the star over Bethlehem, Herod’s massacre of the infants and Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt with their baby.
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