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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Falconer, the gold-digging Labour Lord
Cynicism about politicians typically serves the Tory vote, which thrives on a negative view of humanity — but the situation is not helped when Labour figures too are caught with their snouts in some of the nastiest second-job troughs going, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
Lord Falconer
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
LABOUR are — rightly — doing well out of the growing “second jobs” scandal in Parliament: the MPs with big-bucks-second-jobs and the ones who have tried to influence the government for their paymasters are overwhelmingly Tory.
Boris Johnson’s ham-fisted attempt to get Owen Paterson off for breaking the rules has led to anger about how far MPs are allowed to moonlight for corporations within those rules and calls to tighten the rules.
Keir Starmer’s team have pressed on how Conservative MPs are helping their corporate friends and themselves, not the voters. They’ve done it with more vigour than we are used to, which is good.
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SOLOMON HUGHES asks whether Labour ‘engaging with decision-makers’ with scandalous records of fleecing the public is really in our interests
While Reform poses as a workers’ party, a credible left alternative rooted in working-class communities would expose their sham — and Corbyn’s stature will be crucial to its appeal, argues CHELLEY RYAN
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