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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Nothing left to Gove
Tory Environment Secretary Michael Gove
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
OUR political system is stuffed with odd conventions. Many, like the much-abused pairing system of excusing MPs from votes — which this week forced Labour’s Tulip Siddiq to postpone a Caesarean section — deserve to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
One that should survive, though, is the practice that closing speeches in votes of confidence are given not by party leaders, but by their seconds in command.
It allows us to see normally overshadowed figures as if they were the centrepiece, with a dash of hope or warning.
When the Labour government fell in 1979, Michael Foot, then deputy Labour leader and Lord President of the Council, delivered one of the finest orations in British parliamentary history.
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