Founded in 1843 as a burial society enabling members to pay as little as a penny per week to cover the costs of their funerals, the Society is wholly owned by its members and has grown into one of the largest insurance businesses in the UK. Its status as a Mutual is now threatened with … Continue reading
We’ve teamed up with the campaign Great UK Products You Can Buy and Solidarity Trade Union to produce some suggestions for UK-made Xmas gifts. Buying UK-made goods keeps our people in work, boosts our economy, and is more ecological (because supply chains are shorter). It’s a small way we can all make a positive difference. … Continue reading
On the Sunday morning of 12th June 1950, the Head of Reuters News Agency in West Berlin left a note for his employers in his office, jumped into his car, and drove through the Brandenburg Gate to begin a new life in Communist East Germany. Although this did not cause quite the sensation created by … Continue reading
“Rugby League is a 13-a-side game played by white working-class males in the North of England. It is the dominant winter sport in the states of New South Wales and Queensland in Australia and is also popular in France, New Zealand. Fiji and Tonga despite playing second fiddle there to Rugby Union. It barely … Continue reading
Although slavery was endemic in American society from the very first settlements in the 17th century the Civil War of 1861-65 promised a new beginning. The slave-owning Confederate states of the South surrendered to the Northern armies in 1865. Slavery had been abolished by the 13th Amendment to the constitution in 1863. The 15th Amendment … Continue reading
When Winston Churchill was invited to form a government of National Unity on 10 May 1940, the day that the Nazis launched their offensive which was to reach the Channel coast within three weeks, the first name on the list of those he wished to serve in his cabinet was Ernest Bevin. This was truly … Continue reading