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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Change UK: the audacity of hype
Change UK has crashed out of existence - but its centrist backers are unlikely to learn any lessons as to why, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
The short-lived new centrist hope: The Independent Group, a.k.a Change UK, a.k.a Tinge UK
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
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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
THE failure of The Independent Group for Change — aka Change UK — shows that a whole way of “doing politics” doesn’t do the business anymore.
The theory was that politics involved selling a product to a passive electorate. The product, the party’s “retail offer,” should be selected from a narrow range of “sensible” positions, as designed and decided on by expert gatekeepers: corporate funded think tanks come up with the ideas.
National media pundits and editors decide which policies and parties are the “favourites.” Multi-millionaires fund the parties, which use the money to pay expensive consultants to package them. At some point party members might be brought in as cheerleaders and to do a bit of voluntary work and generally do as they are told.
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