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 eternal sunshine of the centrist mind
SOLOMON HUGHES asks who the real political grown-ups are: the straight-talking Laura Pidcock or the neoliberal ‘moderates’?
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
THERE is a regular, plaintiff cry from the “moderate” centre of politics that goes like this: “Can we have the grown-ups back?”
It’s a cri de coeur from those who believe in their hearts that centrist politics comes from sensible, grown-up heads. Their ideas are adult, thought-through, sensible. The left’s ideas are naive, silly, childish and unachievable.
But drawing the left as the Kevin and Perry of politics and the “moderates” as their long-suffering parents is itself based on a deep strain of naivety among the supposedly “sophisticated” technocrats. A naivety that has been on display for decades.
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