From the 1917 Balfour Declaration to today’s F-35 sales, Britain’s historical responsibility has now evolved into support for the present-day outright genocide. But our solidarity movement is growing too, writes BEN JAMAL
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An error occurred while searching, try again later.The problem with CS Lewis
After a ruinous run at Tolkien, the streaming platforms are moving on to Narnia — a naff mix of religious allegory, colonial attitudes, and thinly veiled prejudices that is beyond rescuing, writes STEPHEN ARNELL
CS Lewis in 1947 [Pic: Scan of photograph by Arthur Strong]
DIANE ABBOTT MP warns Starmer’s newly declared war on foreigners and scroungers won’t fix housing or services — only class struggle against austerity can do that, and defeat Farage in the process
Ben Chacko talks to ALAN MARDGHUM of the Durham Miners Association about Reform UK‘s dangerous inroads into Durham’s long-standing Labour county council; why he cancelled his party membership; and the political class’s disconnect from working people
Speaking to a CND meeting in Cambridge this week, SIMON BRIGNELL traced how the alliance’s anti-communist machinery broke unions, diverted vital funds from public services, and turned workers into cannon fodder for profit
We’ll be developing a people’s manifesto for the 2026 local elections. We’ll network, learn, inspire and support each other and chart a future path for socialist politics, writes JAMIE DRISCOLL
MAT COWARD rises over such semantics to offer step by step, fool-proof cultivating tips
MOLLY QUELL reports on the sanctions placed on International Criminal Court officials by the Trump regime, making it increasingly difficult for the tribunal to conduct even basic tasks
“If Lucy had really met a faun, that is, a satyr, the result would have been a rape, not a tea party” — Christopher Tolkien on his father’s view of Narnia.
WITH “Barbie/Mumblecore” director/actor Greta Gerwig prepping Netflix’s no doubt eye-wateringly high-budgeted adaptation of CS Lewis’s Narnia novels, now is surely an appropriate time to discuss “the problem with CS Lewis.”
Pop singer Charli XCX is reportedly in line to play White Witch Jadis in Gerwig’s take on the Narnia-verse, which appears to be the first front in the war against the traditional version of CS Lewis’s Christian-proselytising, misogynistic and generally toffee-nosed fantasy legendarium.
Not to knock Ms XCX, but the character of Jadis has been played by thespians in the league of Tilda Swinton, Sheila Hancock, and Barbara Kellerman, so it might prove a stretch for the 32-year-old novice actor to convince as the evil witch, although I could of course be mistaken.
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