Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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‘National Conservatism’ and ‘Progressive Britain’ — is there really such a difference?
BEN CHACKO argues that behind the deliberate dog-whistle provocations of the loony right and the vacuous ‘aspirational’ rhetoric of Blairism is a united front to lower our expectations — and our living standards
Two sides of the same coin? Both Labour and the Tories are engaged in lowering our expectations of life and work
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
TWO May conferences painted a bleak outlook for Britain’s working-class movement — unless it can wrest control of the political agenda back from politicians.
Both were conservative. That is, one was run by a group called Progressive Britain, but its keynote speech by Keir Starmer stressed Labour as the party of true conservatives.
The other was called the National Conservatism conference, though it wasn’t national in the sense of being home-grown like Therese Coffey’s turnips, since it was a project of the Edmund Burke Foundation, a US think tank.
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CLAUDIA WEBBE argues that Labour gains nothing from its adoption of right-wing stances on immigration, and seems instead to be deliberately paving the way for the far right to become an established force in British politics, as it has already in Europe
CWU leader DAVE WARD tells Ben Chacko a strategy to unite workers on class lines is needed – and sectoral collective bargaining must be at its heart
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