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
SWITCH on the radio, look in the newspaper and see something nasty coming out of a university? Take a close look and you might see that it isn’t often just any old university. It’s the University of Buckingham.
Radio 4 have got a “University Leader” to say why Lecturers and Librarians should not go on strike. Oh look, it’s Anthony Seldon, vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham.
A professor is trying to support the Sun’s absurd story about Corbyn being a Czech spy? It’s Professor Anthony Glees of the University of Buckingham.
At the very moment Britain faces poverty, housing and climate crises requiring radical solutions, the liberal press promotes ideologically narrow books while marginalising authors who offer the most accurate understanding of change, writes IAN SINCLAIR
While Hardie, MacDonald and Wilson faced down war pressure from their own Establishment, today’s leadership appears to have forgotten that opposing imperial adventures has historically defined Labour’s moral authority, writes KEITH FLETT
DAVID RABY reports on the progressive administration in Mexico, which continues to overcome far-left wreckers on the edges of a teaching union, the murderous violence of the cartels, the ploys of the traditional right wing, and Trump’s provocations
Almost half of universities face deficits, merger mania is taking hold, and massive fee hikes that will lock out working-class students are on the horizon, write RUBEN BRETT, PAUL WHITEHOUSE and DAN GRACE


