As tens of thousands return to the streets for the first national Palestine march of 2026, this movement refuses to be sidelined or silenced, says PETER LEARY
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Mass insulation meets the Jevons Paradox
A planned carbon capture storage plant sits uneasily alongside continued inaction on home insulation — how can we make sure any new ‘efficiency’ does not lead to greater consumption — and should we, ask ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and JOEL HELLEWELL
In England, there are nearly seven million homes with solid walls. Currently, less than 10 per cent of those have solid insulation. The situation is better for homes with cavity walls: out of 16 million, nearly 70 per cent have cavity insulation — although that means that five million remain without.
If the government really wanted to address public finances, improve living standards and begin economic recovery, it would increase its borrowing for investment, argues MICHAEL BURKE
MATT KERR takes a winter journey through poetry, labour and memory, from Glasgow to Newcastle, arguing that our radical past isn’t something to revere from a distance, but a tool still meant to be used
One of Canada’s most revered politicians is a native of Falkirk but is relatively unknown in his original homeland. KENNY MacASKILL tells his story
Labour prospects in May elections may be irrevocably damaged by Birmingham Council’s costly refusal to settle the year-long dispute, warns STEVE WRIGHT
HENRY FOWLER and ROB POOLE explain the significance of today’s Megapicket
IN 1865, the English economist William Stanley Jevons wrote a book called The Coal Question. In it, he considered a paradoxical fact about technological progress.
One might assume that increases in the efficiency of burning coal would mean that there would be a corresponding reduction in its use because less was needed to achieve the same aims. But as Jevons noted, “it is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.”
The Jevons Paradox states that increases in efficiency lead to increases in demand. A century-and-a-half later, it remains depressingly relevant.
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The Communist Party of Britain’s Congress last month debated a resolution on ending opposition to all nuclear power in light of technological advances and the climate crisis. RICHARD HEBBERT explains why
The government’s nuclear power expansion plan is a hollow betrayal of working people that panders to wealthy corporations and will rip off consumers, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER