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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How grassroots struggle helped defeat Thatcherism
Having seen the intensity of the struggles of the 1980s, SOLOMON HUGHES doesn’t believe there won’t be fierce resistance from those that cheered on Thatcherism the first time
BEYOND WESTMINSTER: Police attempt to control protesters gathered in Trafalgar Square, London, to protest against the Poll Tax in March 31 1990
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
PEOPLE ask me: “Hey, grey-haired old 1980s guy. What happened in the ’80s?”
“Was it,” they persist, “all ra-ra skirts and synthesisers? Or long faces and long coats and Joy Division. Or loadsamoney and massive brick mobile phones?”
And I say: “Yes, of course it was.” Although to be honest I never saw an actual mobile phone in the ’80s. It was more about using phone boxes because not everyone had a phone in their house, let alone in their hand.
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A past confrontation permanently shaped the methods the state will use to protect employers against any claims by their employees, writes MATT WRACK, but unions are readying to face the challenge
Forty years on, TONY DUBBINS revisits the Wapping dispute to argue that Murdoch’s real aim was union-busting – enabled by Thatcherite laws, police violence, compliant unions and a complicit media
Four decades on, the Wapping dispute stands as both a heroic act of resistance and a decisive moment in the long campaign to break trade union power. Lord JOHN HENDY KC looks back on the events of 1986
Enduring myths blame print unions for their own destruction – but TONY BURKE argues that the Wapping dispute was a calculated assault by Murdoch on organised labour, which reshaped Britain’s media landscape and casts a long shadow over trade union rights today