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
“WE ARE seeing a simultaneous breakdown in economic and geopolitical orders.”
Thus Gordon Brown, the most interesting of our coterie of eight ex-prime ministers; a low bar to clear for sure.
The US president’s adventurism in Iran began as a display of overwhelming force but has swiftly become a lesson in over-reach, says ANDREW MURRAY
ISAAC SANEY points to the global stakes involved in defending the Cuban revolution against imperialism and calls for resistance
BEN CHACKO says in different ways, the centenary of the General Strike and that of Fidel Castro’s birth point to priority tasks for the British left in the coming year
As US hegemony crumbles and Trump becomes ever more unpredictable, European powers cling to the pact’s militarist agenda in a bid to disguise their own increasing irrelevance, writes CHRIS NINEHAM


