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
Back to the failed future
VINCE MILLS takes issue with the New Labour-inspired plans of shadow work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall for so-called Neets – people not in education, employment or training
BLAST FROM THE PAST: Kendall (left) and Starmer want to resurrect New
Labour thinking regarding young jobseekers
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
WITH each passing opinion poll, the famous Ming vase Keir Starmer metaphorically clings to on his way electoral victory, has been transformed into a material so unbreakable, through the political alchemy of the Tory collapse, that it could be bounced off the brass neck of Tony Blair without any damage.
The certainty of a Labour government means that the left needs to grasp not just the neoliberal general direction of the next Labour government, but the specific policies that it intends to introduce, the better to address this new period, for good, or more likely, for ill.
This is no easy task, for as frustrated media presenters tell Labour spokespeople on an almost daily basis on our screens and radios, the detailed policies of the next Labour government remain veiled in secrecy. All the more reason then, why we should pay attention to those aspects of their programme that Labour have chosen to reveal.
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