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
Special Branch’s newspaper of choice
FOI requests reveal that police and government were avid readers of the Morning Star during the landmark Grunwick strike of the late ’70s, finds SOLOMON HUGHES
Grunwick strikers en-route to the House of Commons to lobby MPs prior to presenting a petition to the prime minister James Callaghan
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
THERE is an old joke on the left that every socialist newspaper is guaranteed at least two subscriptions. Both from the security services. They need two copies because they need each side of the page for their scrapbook.
Looking through the very large file of papers I got under freedom of information on the 1977 Grunwick strike shows the Home Office and Special Branch were avid readers of the Morning Star.
We now know the Home Office relied heavily on undercover officers who spent years infiltrating left-wing groups.
Similar stories
Since 2023, Strike Map has evolved from digital mapping at a national level to organising ‘mega pickets’ — we believe that mass solidarity with localised disputes prepares the ground for future national action, writes HENRY FOWLER
RON BROWN makes the case for the Morning Star as the daily paper of all trade unionists, and especially education workers who have seen it cover their issues and their actions, day in, day out
PETER LAZENBY is fascinated by a book of cartoons that shows how newspaper cartoonists were employed to, on the one hand, denigrade and, on the other, to defend the miners’ strike of 1984-85
Remembering KEN CAPSTICK, vice-president of the National Union of Mineworkers Yorkshire Area