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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Labour’s brand tarnished for millions of voters
Where Starmer endorses Israel’s actions today he gives political cover to Netanayu’s overall aims, argues NICK WRIGHT
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
KEIR STARMER is emerging as a threat to Labour prospects. Whether the Labour leader believes what he says or simply doesn’t regard it as a legitimate subject for reflection is no longer a matter open to debate.
There is a growing conviction that Starmer speaks with conviction only to endorse Britain’s imperial foreign policy, express unshakeable loyalty to every manoeuvre by Nato, unchanging fealty to the United States and any act of the Israeli state.
For a British electorate largely convinced that politicians are liars he is mendacity personified. So permanent is the shadow of darkness cast by his mendacity that it has now begun to eclipse that even of Boris Johnson.
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On International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, HUGH LANNING warns that the US-led “Comprehensive Plan” entrenches decades of Western complicity in Israel’s domination and denial of Palestinian land and rights
Israel’s messianic settler regime has moved beyond military containment to mass ethnic cleansing, making any two-state solution based on differential rights impossible — we must support the Palestinian demand for decolonisation, writes HUGH LANNING
Israel follows through on threat to cut off electricity supply to the Palestinians in Gaza
The situation for the peoples of the Middle East is dire – the time has come to build an international coalition to isolate the warmongers for as long as they continue their violent campaign, argues AQEL TAQAZ