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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Tumultuous times for the left in Europe
With the left coalition NUPES rapidly disintegrating in France and the formation of a new party led by Sahra Wagenknecht in Germany, it’s been a dramatic recent period for Europe’s progressive forces. NICK WRIGHT assesses the situation
Jean-Luc Melenchon of France Insoumise (left); Sahra Wagenknecht formerly of Die Linke (centre); and the French Communist Party’s Fabien Roussel (right)
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
LAST weekend saw big upsets on the left in France and Germany. The economic crisis that goes with Europe’s submission to the US strategy of tension with Russia — with its openly proclaimed objective of limiting Chinese influence — expresses itself in a political crisis that has inevitably drawn in the left.
In France the political status of Marine Le Pen and the Rassemblement National (RN) is enhanced, with a poll conducted last month that revealed her as the second-most popular politician in the country.
The poll, commissioned by Liberation, showed RN at 20 per cent, ahead of Emmanuel Macron’s party Renaissance on 15 per cent, with the left alliance, NUPES, led by Jean Luc Melenchon on 14 per cent. The remnants of Gaullism in Les Republicains were at 13 per cent.
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In part two of May’s Berlin Bulletin, VICTOR GROSSMAN, having assessed the policies of the new government, looks at how the opposition is faring
In the recent federal elections the far-right AfD was able to reach sections of the working class on issues over which the left is divided and unable to articulate a coherent position, a situation that is replicated in a number of other European countries, argues NICK WRIGHT
Ben Chacko talks to Bundestag member for the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, SEVIM DAGDELEN, about the continuing war in Ukraine, the economic crisis, controversies over immigration, the failings of Germany’s liberalised prostitution policy, and the importance of free speech
With federal elections coming up in Germany in February, NICK WRIGHT takes a look at the class forces shaping the policies of the main parties, and sees little hope of a breakthrough for the left