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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‘White privilege?’ Don’t believe a word of it
SOLOMON HUGHES gives the long history of ignorant and reactionary Tory interventions into education that attempt to hide the problems caused by cuts with contrived and ridiculous debates over culture and tradition
Robert Halfon
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
ROBERT HALFON’S attempt to blame anti-racists for bad results in underfunded schools rather than his own government’s spending cuts, is one of the nastier attempts to use “culture war” themes to cover Tory education failures.
But it’s also a bit of a tradition: Tory education ministers often blame “liberal values” for bad results from badly funded education. Every time they do, school funding drops and the results get worse.
Halfon, leading the education select committee, showed white kids on free school meals are doing very badly in school results: that’s because the poorest kids in de-industrialised towns are doing even worse than the poorest kids in cities.
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