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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Ian Austin's not so Mainstream after all
SOLOMON HUGHES finds yet more links between Public First, a Tory-led consultancy and the former-Labour MP's anti-Corbyn 'spoiler' campaign
Ian Austin
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
IN AUGUST 2019 Ian Austin set up Mainstream, a campaign to “encourage a return to respectable and responsible politics and to banish extremism from British politics once and for all.” Austin recommended voting for Johnson’s Conservatives and against Corbyn’s Labour Party.
Mainstream was a relatively low-budget affair, spending just £134,000 in the 2019 election. But it got incredible bang for its buck.
Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Communication and Culture tallied which political figures attracted the most coverage in national TV news and national newspapers during the election: Ian Austin came in at number 11, just pipping Michael Gove. There was a media enthusiasm, it seems, for an ex-Labour MP denouncing Labour — and Mainstream gave Austin a platform.
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