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
Latest editorial
Enough is enough – workers demand a pay rise
We cannot let this be another decade where the super-rich steal an even bigger slice of the pie at the workers’ expense – that’s why I’m calling for a £15-an-hour minimum wage, writes JON TRICKETT MP
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 long-term effects of chemical weapons such as Agent Orange mean that the impact of war lasts well beyond a ceasefire
WORKERS in our country have endured decades of stagnating wages.
Since Thatcher’s attacks on trade unions in the 1980s, more money has been going to shareholders in the form of profits and less has been going to workers in the form of wages. Successive governments have kept Thatcher’s labour market reforms intact.
The Conservatives’ policy of austerity and wage restraint in the 2010s caused the longest pay squeeze since the time of the Napoleonic wars. It took 13 years for workers’ wages to return to the levels they were before the global financial crisis of 2008.
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We cannot refuse to abolish the unjustifiable two-child benefit cap that pushes children into poverty while finding billions of pounds for defence spending — the membership and the public expect better from Labour, writes JON TRICKETT MP
RICHARD BURGON MP points to the recent relative success of widespread opposition to the Labour leadership’s regressive policies as the blueprint for exacting the changes required to build a fairer society
Congress can chart a bold course that will force meaningful transformation for the people of Scotland
