Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER

THE neighbours weren’t happy, of course. Mill Hill’s leafy mansions had provided two mayors of London, plus William Wilberforce — and Sir James Murray, who founded the Oxford English Dictionary.
Now, they were to have thousands of London’s impoverished working class on their doorstep. Children used to tenements would lead gangs of thieves, they insisted. Their parents would create a Little Moscow.
It’s true that Burnt Oak was an unlikely choice. It’s the last but one stop on London’s Northern line and then so remote that its station opened only in 1924, and then just at weekends.

ALAN SIMPSON warns that Starmer’s triangulation strategy will fail just as New Labour’s did, with each rightward move by Labour pushing Tories further right

‘Chance encounters are what keep us going,’ says novelist Haruki Murakami. In Amy, a chance encounter gives fresh perspective to memories of angst, hedonism and a charismatic teenage rebel.

