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
Stop the war: conference discusses strategies for winning the labour movement to an anti-war understanding
BEN CHACKO reports from Hamilton House
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
THE first ever Stop the War Coalition trade union conference held at the weekend looked at how to build a bigger peace movement — and how to reverse the TUC’s decision last autumn to support increased arms spending.
Multiple unions are affiliated to Stop the War, and the organisation has significant support on the left — a 2020 survey found it was the most popular campaigning organisation among Labour members.
Labour members’ opposition to militarism was also clear in the 2021 Labour conference vote to oppose the Aukus nuclear submarine pact between Britain, the United States and Australia, which guest speaker Warren Smith of the Australian Maritime Union warned was an attempt to ratchet up tension with China and assert Anglo-Saxon military dominance of the Pacific.
Similar stories
In the first half of a two-part article, PETER MERTENS looks at how Nato’s €800 billion ‘Readiness 2030’ plan serves Washington’s pivot to the Pacific, forcing Europeans to dismantle social security and slash pensions to fund it
While working people face austerity, arms companies enjoy massive government contracts, writes ARTHUR WEST, exposing how politicians exaggerate the Russian threat to justify spending on a sector that has the lowest employment multiplier
