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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May's Cabinet is posher than ever
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
Theresa May said her reshuffle would make her government “more like the country it serves,” but, as the Sutton Trust showed, the percentage of her Cabinet who went to private, fee-paying schools actually increased, from 30 per cent to 34 per cent, as against 7 per cent of the general population who are privately educated.
Her new chair of the Conservative Party, Brandon Lewis (pictured), has an even greater commitment to private schools.
Lewis himself was privately educated at the independent Forest School, then went to Buckingham University — one of the five private universities in Britain — which has close links to Margaret Thatcher, who helped its launch and became university chancellor there when she left office in 1992.
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