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
We need a ‘right to food’
A new report shows that food workers increasingly cannot afford to feed themselves — we need take the fight against in-work poverty seriously, writes SARAH WOOLLEY
Food laid out in crates at a food bank in north London
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 week the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union (BFAWU) published a report that calls for the right to food for every citizen, every worker, every child across Britain.
In this report we wanted to give voice to our members. We wanted to hear from them their experiences and whether food workers were themselves feeling “food insecure” and suffering from food poverty.
The findings are shocking. Many of our members in the food industry — the forgotten key workers, the very people who kept us all fed during the pandemic — are struggling to feed themselves and their families. And the reason is simple: endemic low pay.
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