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
John Prescott’s class act was entirely for the elite
The fawning tributes from the Establishment have painted Prescott as a fighter for Old Labour leftism and treated his background and accent as unique eccentricities — two utterly bogus postulations, writes STEVE PARRY
NEW FOR OLD? Labour leader Tony Blair (second right), with (from
left) Gordon Brown, deputy leader John Prescott and Robin Cook at
the 1995 launch of the ‘New Labour, New Britain’ tour, in which he
spent three weeks visiting towns and cities in a bid to convince party
doubters that clause four of the party’s constitution must be scrapped
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 tributes have for have been pouring for political heavyweight and man of the people, John Prescott (aka Baron Prescott of Kingston upon Hull), who passed away last week aged 84.
His reputation was of a man singularly able to cut through the usual Westminster crap using the unvarnished spade of mangled syntax and the blunt shovel of malapropisms as his tools.
Homeless seamen were forced to live in “hostiles,” industrial disputes could be sorted through “meditation,” and the New Labour mission was to “go back now, forwards, back to full employment.” Absolute gibberish, of course, but we knew what he was on about, at least most of the time.
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