Mask-off outbursts by Maga insiders and most strikingly, the destruction and reconstruction of the presidential seat, with a huge new $300m ballroom, means Trump isn’t planning to leave the White House when his term ends, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Latest editorial
The pick ’n’ mix politics of Christmas
Marxist theologian PROFESSOR JAMES CROSSLEY looks at how the story of the birth of Jesus was created from multiple sources and how the political class use and abuse it today
Boris Johnson addresses soldiers after serving Christmas lunch to British troops stationed in Estonia, December 2019
BEN CHACKO speaks with Knesset member OFER CASSIF about rising political violence, the prospects for peace and his continuous ‘silencing by suspension’
The City is leaning on Rachel Reeves to cut welfare spending — when what’s needed is cuts to all the benefits given to the mega rich, corporations and banks to help them not pay or blatantly dodge their fair share of tax, explains BERNIE EVANS
The choice between two Blairites to revamp the tepid centrism of our ruling party doesn’t even come as cold comfort as we wander the city streets suffering from their third decade of austerity and the fifth of wage stagnation, writes MATT KERR
ANN HENDERSON looks at the trailblazers of the Women’s Trade Union League and their successful fight for female factory inspectors — a battle that echoes in today’s workplace campaigns
HENRY FOWLER puts the strike of public-sector workers in New Zealand in the wider context of deteriorating employment conditions throughout the world’s major economies
MAT COWARD looks back at a protest 105 years ago this month, whose reporting by the media bears uncomfortable similarities with demos today
THE story of the birth of Jesus is found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
While they are both relatively light on the familiar Christmas details, both tell stories of the virgin Mary, Bethlehem and angels (though admittedly angels were understood as militaristic supernatural figures, rather than twee figures of more recent imaginations).
From Matthew’s Gospel we get the unnamed and unnumbered wise men from the east, the gifts (frankincense, gold and myrrh), the star over Bethlehem, Herod’s massacre of the infants and Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt with their baby.
Similar stories
‘Honest’ Tom Wharton’s 1682 drunken rampage through St Mary’s church haunted his political career, but his satirical song Lillibullero helped topple Catholic James II during the Glorious Revolution, writes MAT COWARD
JAMES CROSSLEY charts how anti Jewish sentiment developed from ancient days and the dawn of Christianity to the Middle Ages, the birth of Protestantism and the sinister era of of the Nazis
DAVID YEARSLEY argues that Bach’s most beloved seasonal offering, the Christmas Oratorio, is anything but music of peace and goodwill
Behind headlines of bishops’ resignations and brutal abuse lies the deeper story of class privilege and power, as religious institutions face a stark choice between serving the elite or standing with the oppressed, writes SYMON HILL