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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Institutionalising institutional inequality
Boris Johnson appointed a businessman who was named and shamed by the government for paying workers below the minimum wage as a commissioner on race and ethnic disparities — and the rest are not much better, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
Boris Johnson's new commission on race and ethnic disparities is a Tory travesty
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
THE PRIME MINISTER announced a new commission on race and ethnic disparities in June, saying it was inspired by “the many thousands of people who have joined the Black Lives Matter movement.”
In July Johnson announced the commissioners who, he said, would “examine inequality in the UK, across the whole population.”
But one of the 10 commissioners, businessman Aftab Chughtai, had been publicly attacked by the government for failing to pay the minimum wage.
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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
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