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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Trident vote risks Scottish Labour success in 2016
Recent conference divisions are already being exploited by the SNP ahead of the Holyrood elections, writes VINCE MILLS
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
IN THE spirit of the new politics of honesty that Jeremy Cobyn is trying to usher into the Labour Party, I won’t claim the position on Trident that emerged from the Labour Party conference was not a setback.
Perhaps some of us thought that if we could get Jeremy elected then anything was possible. This included a rapid shift on Labour’s pro-renewal position on Trident, a position that leans heavily on trade union concerns about jobs and deep-seated assumptions about Britain’s role in the world that have infected the Labour Party for a long time.
Just how deep-seated this is can be seen in the imperialism of Clement Attlee’s government. For all the social and economic advances it made, we should not forget its role in developing Britain’s nuclear capacity.
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The new Scottish Parliament looks set to continue a cycle of managerial tinkering while public services face the axe, writes STEPHEN LOW
VINCE MILLS cautions over the perils and pitfalls of ‘a new left party’
Sixty Red-Green seats in a hung parliament could force Labour to choose between the death of centrism or accommodation with the left — but only if enough of us join the Greens by July 31 and support Zack Polanski’s leadership, writes JAMES MEADWAY
