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
How great would Great British Energy be?
Would Starmer’s planned energy firm be a state-owned, cost-cutting, green energy giant that shows Labour is looking to the future with its core values intact? Or would it be a single windmill and a drab kiosk, asks SOLOMON HUGHES
Party leader Sir Keir Starmer making his keynote address during the Labour Party Conference at the ACC Liverpool. Picture date: Tuesday September 27, 2022.
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
KEIR STARMER’S Great British Energy announcement, a proposed energy firm that will be a “partnership” between the government and private business, is part of a slight leftwards lean.
Partly this is because now the “moderates” fully control the party they don’t just see abandoning public ownership as part of their primary mission — which was unseating the left.
In charge, they can let their hair down and promise voters something. But in part it is also because the left kept pushing on the idea of publicly owned energy to address the crisis. The left kept the idea alive and as the right has few ideas, its has adopted this one.
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Aslef general secretary MICK WHELAN speaks to Ben Chacko about rail renationalisation, the Employment Rights Bill and why we shouldn’t write off this Labour government
SOLOMON HUGHES examines how Labour has gone from blaming Tory deregulation for our economic woes to betting the nation's future on more of it