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
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Farage, extra-parliamentary politics and the left
How has Farage repeatedly failed to get elected to Parliament, but always succeeded in influencing parliamentary politics? KEITH FLETT looks at the tools available to the right and left locked outside of Westminster
OUTSIDE PRESSURE: Protesters greet Farage’s battle bus in Barnsley
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 long-term effects of chemical weapons such as Agent Orange mean that the impact of war lasts well beyond a ceasefire
THE Guardian journalist Aditya Chakrabortty recently wrote a typically to-the-point piece about Nigel Farage, what Faragism really means and why it has an impact.
Farage is standing for an eighth time as a parliamentary candidate in Clacton, having lost on seven previous occasions. He has been elected as an MEP — but as part of a party list that did not specifically require voters to ponder if they wanted to back him personally.
It’s difficult to see Farage being overly keen on up to five years as MP for Clacton. It would significantly constrain his media and money-making roles — and his US jaunts.
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Every Starmer boast about removing asylum-seekers probably wins Reform another seat while Labour loses more voters to Lib Dems, Greens and nationalists than to the far right — the disaster facing Labour is the leadership’s fault, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP
While Spode quit politics after inheriting an earldom, Farage combines MP duties with selling columns, gin, and even video messages — proving reality produces more shameless characters than PG Wodehouse imagined, writes STEPHEN ARNELL
While Hardie, MacDonald and Wilson faced down war pressure from their own Establishment, today’s leadership appears to have forgotten that opposing imperial adventures has historically defined Labour’s moral authority, writes KEITH FLETT
Health Secretary Wes Streeting taking £53k from Tory-linked recruiter and outsourcer Peter Hearn’s OPD Group is a great example of how Labour’s rich donors shape policies targeting the poor – not their wealth, writes SOLOMON HUGHES