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
Latest editorial
Novelist’s anti-Corbyn outburst speaks volumes
Jeremy Corbyn at a photocall after delivering the Alternative MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival
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
BLASTS from the past are unexpected by definition. But when I discovered the young adult novelist William Sutcliffe had been in the Edinburgh International Book Festival tent alongside me to hear from Jeremy Corbyn and Yanis Varoufakis this week, I was still taken aback.
Sutcliffe’s book Bad Influence was foisted upon us in my third year of secondary school. It’s the tale of Ben and Olly, two innocent middle-class kids whose world is turned upside-down by the arrival of an older boy, Carl — who goes to, or bunks off from, “the unit” rather than normal school and whose mum has nothing in her kitchen cupboards.
It was not exactly a great work of literature, but it did deliver a few thrills, including a vicious card game called “knuckles” and our hapless English teacher, an ex-BBC man, having to say the S-word while reading to the class.
Similar stories
The unifying victory of Irish progressive forces in the presidential campaign should be a salutary lesson to the left in this country, argues MARY GRIFFITHS CLARKE
Royal Mail’s job quality has plummeted, with gruelling hours, two-tier pay, intense surveillance, and poor work-life balance for postal workers — but our union is fighting back, writes CWU branch secretary JOHN CARSON
Fiery words from the Bard in Blackpool and Edinburgh, and Evidence Based Punk Rock from The Protest Family
MATT KERR charts his bike-riding odyssey in aid of the Royal Marsden charity and CWU Humanitarian Aid