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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Divided we fall
As the far right unites, history warns us sectarianism costs lives, says LOUISE RAW
[Ceren Sagir]
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
RUDOLF HOESS was the longest-serving commandant at Auschwitz and the man responsible for introducing pesticide Zyklon B into the industrial killing complex the camp had become.
Despite the horrifying nature of his “work,” documents preserved at the site show Hoess still enjoyed a joke. When former sworn enemies on the German left, from the reformist Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Communist Party (KPD) found themselves imprisoned together at Auschwitz, the commandant relished the irony. Perhaps, he opined, they could use their new proximity to “settle their differences.”
Hoess knew very well that, had it not been for those differences, the nazi regime might never have taken power — nor Auschwitz existed.
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Donald Trump’s inauguration has emboldened fascists in Britain, warns SABBY DHALU
Driven on by novel forms of hard-right populism like Modi and Trump, European neofascists are skillfully rebranding themselves and taking power by copying the left's language — just as they did in the last century, writes JOHN GREEN