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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A view from the ground in Clacton
ANDREW MURRAY visits Nigel Farage’s target constituency and wonders what it is about the seaside town that has put it in Reform UK’s sights
A Reform UK supporter in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex in the run-up to the general election
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
WHY Clacton? What makes this Essex seaside town ground zero for national populism in Britain?
When Nigel Farage made a screeching U-turn and announced his eighth bid to be elected to Parliament, he does not seem to have spent long pondering which lucky constituency to thrust himself on.
It is the seat which gave Ukip its only elected MP, Douglas Carswell, so there is form. But Carswell had originally won election as a Tory, and Ukip was anyway a single-issue party with that issue very much top of the Essex coastal agenda — Clacton voted for Leave by over 70 per cent.
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