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
LABOUR’S conference, opening in Liverpool at the weekend, ought to be a gathering of victors basking in their huge parliamentary majority.
Yet I anticipate angst. Keir Starmer barely rode a ripple, never mind a wave, into office.
Since entering Downing Street, all suited and booted courtesy of the largesse of Lord Alli, the Prime Minister has set about diminishing his standing still further, mainly by picking confrontations with the poorest.
As the PM and his chief of staff’s blunders have mounted up, ANDREW MURRAY wonders who among Labour’s diminished ‘soft left’ might make a bid for the leadership
In the run-up to the Communist Party congress in November ROB GRIFFITHS outlines a few ideas regarding its participation in the elections of May 2026
From Gaza complicity to welfare cuts chaos, Starmer’s baggage accumulates, and voters will indeed find ‘somewhere else’ to go — to the Greens, nationalists, Lib Dems, Reform UK or a new, working-class left party, writes NICK WRIGHT


