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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Tory austerity is still devastating Britain
Reports from Crisis, the Trussell Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation show that the inhumane Tories are leading us deeper into a social emergency, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE
People take part in the People's Assembly Britain is Broken national demonstration in central London, in November 2022
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 situation facing Britain is nothing less than a social emergency. Currently, 14.5 million people are living in poverty in Britain, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s figures that were released in September.
In terms of children specifically, the latest numbers tell us that almost one in three children are living in poverty (31 per cent). Nearly half of children in lone-parent families live in poverty, compared with one in four of those in couple families.
And more people than ever will be using foodbanks this Christmas, with a recent release from the Trussell Trust reporting that “for the first time outside of the first year of the pandemic, foodbanks in the Trussell Trust network has distributed over 2.1 million food parcels in 2021-22.”
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