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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Are there lessons from Italy for Britain's broken politics?
Italy's problems with the European Commission deserve close observation by any incoming left government, writes NICK WRIGHT
Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini responds to EU disdain by promoting his alliance with US rightwingers like Mike Pompeo
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 deep institutional and political crisis gripping our country introduces — for the parents of the new political generation — a sensation similar to that experienced by the veterans of the defeated Chartist movement who saw in the late 19th century socialist and trade union renaissance their youthful dreams given new life.
The socialist song “England Arise, the long, long night is over” gave one voice to this reawakening. In Wales and Scotland the same sentiments found a distinctive national expression as British imperial power began to feel the competition from its continental and North American rivals and the stirrings of colonial revolt.
Today, as then, the constant recomposition of capital continually transforms the world of work and the social and political forces that express its contradictions. This proceeds in secret, unseen, the changes barely noticed until a slow accretion of these contradictions burst forth.
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