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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The left's recovery must begin in the workplace
'Political power for the left rests on the strength of industrial organisation'
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
IN THE new year, internal Labour Party politics and the culture war everyone denies fighting will be the chief preoccupation of the left.
While politicians and political commentators continue to struggle over the national questions raised by Brexit, the Scottish independence referendum before it, and the recent election defeat, they will try to make sense of it all by continuing to argue in pointless culture war terms about patriotism, progressive or otherwise billed, conceptions of internationalism and so on.
It was, to a degree, a failure by the political class to make the EU referendum result fit into culture war terms and spend the last three years creating the culture war that led so many to obviously foolish positions in the first place.
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