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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A ruthless masterclass in media control
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
I HAVE just finished editing six issues of ElectionWatch. This involved buying all the national daily and Sunday newspapers since the election was called on October 30 and reading their election coverage.
We did a similar election monitoring exercise back in 1992 when Neil Kinnock was the Labour leader. One of the best political commentators back then was The Independent’s Anthony Bevins (he sadly died of pneumonia in 2001, aged 58).
On February 3, 1992, he wrote: “Having worked for nine years as a political correspondent on The Sun and the Daily Mail, I count myself as something of an expert on the insidious nature of the process.
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