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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Undercover officers in the left: what were they so afraid of?
Before they sent state agents to live as fake leftists, even fathering children with women activists, the government's initial panic-driven attempts to confront the rise in political consciousness amongst 1960s students shows how rotten the system was — and is, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
A demonstrator outside the Royal Courts of Justice, London, in October 2018
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
THIS WEEK the long-delayed Undercover Policing Inquiry began. In 2011 activists and journalists exposed undercover officers who had spent years infiltrating left-wing groups.
The undercovers didn’t stop any crime, but behaved in disgusting ways: they tricked women into long-term relationships and even fathered children under their assumed identities before disappearing back into the police. Revulsion at the undercover officers’ behaviour led to the inquiry.
In 1968 the government were scared of rising protest movements. But the Police could not recruit informants among the new protesters, so the Home Office agreed that officers should live undercover with the activists instead. The sinister practice continued for the next forty years.
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