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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Starmer, Blair, 1935 and all that
By bending history, the Labour right is trying to convince us that social reform is deeply unpopular with the voters and the only way forward is further into bland technocracy. SOLOMON HUGHES gives the facts - on past and present
Building social reform is hard, but possible over time — the Labour right wants to deny the recovery of 1935 just as it wants to deny the recovery of 2017.
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
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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
LABOUR’S current leadership is trying to justify its sharp turn to the right by pointing at the 2019 election result and talking about it being “the worst election defeat since 1935” — a comparison made by Keir Starmer and almost every other Labour spokesman.
Yes, 2019 was bad, but this is a very odd comparison. Labour didn’t win in 1935, but it was actually a good result — Labour got 102 new MPs in 1935, a huge recovery from the real disaster which happened in the election before, 1931.
That year Labour lost 235 MPs, reducing it to just 52 MPs. The 1931 election was a disaster because the Labour right had wrecked the party in an effort to prove it was “sensible.”
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