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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Trade unions at GCHQ – the principle was the thing
NICK WRIGHT revisits the events of 40 years ago and the battle to overcome the ban on trade unions at the government’s communications and eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham
The Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ)
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
OCTOBER 1988 saw a rash of walkouts in hundreds of places where civil servants worked.
Four union members at a little-known government facility, the Government Communications Head Quarters, had been sacked on orders emanating from prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
The four were among a key group of 14 members drawn from the very many specialists working at the state agency responsible for intercepting and analysing electronic and radio communications.
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Remembering a dedicated T&GWU activist, internationalist and anti-sectarian