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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Tories will always put corporate greed before public need
Don’t let Boris Johnson off the hook over sick pay, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE
UK sick pay nearly worst in Europe and in breach of international law
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
HAVING seen how he ran his campaigns for the London mayoralty, it became clear to me some time ago that Boris Johnson’s strategy to gain and maintain power was simple: create a circus headlined by himself to distract from an absence of anything offered by him that will meaningfully improve the lives of those he supposedly serves.
The bumbling persona, the willingness to flip from presenting himself as a modern metropolitan liberal to a reactionary right-wing culture warrior, the gimmicky policy announcements: all of them exist to ensure the topic of conversation is anything other than his actual record on the issues that impact millions.
There’s a reason he always came up with eccentric remarks and schemes while sneaking through measures such as closing 10 London fire stations.
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Labour is deliberately continuing Tory policies that cost us £38 billion more than they save while driving illness rates higher — despite the evidence that previous sanctions doubled suicide attempts, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE
Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO says the status quo cannot last – but those currently poised to replace it would usher in a nightmarish new era