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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Right-wing journalists care desperate for a new ‘red scare’
Opposition to Reagan and Thatcher's 1980s revival of the cold was was huge, writes SOLOMON HUGHES. So why is the media pretending otherwise?
Tens of thousands of demonstrators march along the Thames embankment in October 1984
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
LAST week the Sunday Times tried one of those “Jeremy Corbyn has anti-Western views” stories, highlighting the Labour leader’s opposition to the US bombing of Libya in 1986.
However, it didn’t consult basic historical sources like, er, the Times, because in 1986, in the wake of the US air raid on Libya, the Times reported that its opinion poll showed “a clear majority of the British people” — 66 per cent — disapproved of President Reagan’s decision to bomb Libya.
Neil Kinnock, Labour leader at the time and some Times writers also condemned the bombing raid. Either 66 per cent of British people were “anti-Western” or the story is balls.
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Martin Taylor, the hedge-fund multimillionaire who has poured millions into pushing Labour rightwards, helped finance Lucy Powell’s supposedly dissenting campaign — suggesting her victory was not the ‘soft-left’ rebellion some have claimed, says SOLOMON HUGHES
Kenny MacAskill remembers a ‘Sovietologist’ and voice for peace and reconciliation at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
SOLOMON HUGHES explains how the PM is channelling the spirit of Reagan and Thatcher with a ‘two-tier’ nuclear deterrent, whose Greenham Common predecessor was eventually fought off by a bunch of ‘punks and crazies’