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
TORY MP Jake Berry leads the Northern Research Group, the Conservative MPs who claim to know what voters in former Labour seats in the north really want. It turns out Berry thinks they want a fresh dose of Thatcherism.
They want deregulation and they want businessmen taking over local government, in a plan that was put together with the help of a giant bank with a history of big public subsidies and squeezing the “little” people.
This February, Berry co-wrote a widely reported policy pamphlet published by the Thatcherite Centre for Policy Studies — it called for a Northern Big Bang. You wouldn’t think northern voters are clamouring for Thatcherism, with what that did to the north last time, but Berry thinks otherwise.
CAROL WILCOX argues for the proper implementation of the land value tax, which could see unused plots sold off and landlords priced out of landlordism, potentially resolving the housing and planning crises
It is rather strange that Labour continues to give prestigious roles to inappropriate, controversy-mired businessmen who are also major Tory donors. What could Labour possibly be hoping to get out of it, asks SOLOMON HUGHES
SOLOMON HUGHES asks whether Labour ‘engaging with decision-makers’ with scandalous records of fleecing the public is really in our interests
As bus builder Alexander Dennis threatens Falkirk closure and Grangemouth faces ruthless shutdown by tax exile Jim Ratcliffe, RICHARD LEONARD MSP warns that global corporations must be resisted by a bold industrial strategy based on public ownership


