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
Why Nye Bevan deserves a festival
It was the workers' own healthcare model in his home town of Tredegar that inspired the socialist's greatest work — the NHS — and it is in his home town that once a year we celebrate him and his ideals, writes MARK TURNER
(Left to right): An early painting of Nye Bevan, produced in 1945 by Marcus Stone. In his office in the Ministry of Health, Whitehall in 1946
[People's History of the NHS; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation] 
A judge in a German court ruled that the ban activity imposed on renowned Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was unlawful, reports LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI
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
From Gaza protest bans to proscribing Palestine Action, political elites are showing a crisis of confidence as they abandon Roy Jenkins’s apologetic approach for Suella Braverman’s aggressive ‘hate march’ rhetoric, writes PAUL DONOVAN
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the legal case behind this weekend’s Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and the lessons for today
Ben Chacko talks to RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY about how the key to fixing broken Britain lies in collective sectoral bargaining, restoring unions’ ability to take solidarity strike action and bringing about the much-vaunted ‘wave of insourcing’
The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON
NYE BEVAN was ultimately responsible for the establishing the NHS in 1948. But the Tredegar politician and MP for Ebbw Vale, who became minister for health and housing in 1945, had an ideal model on which to base his new health service, which has been described as “the most far-reaching piece of social legislation in British history.”
That model was the local community self-help scheme run by the Tredegar Workmen’s Medical Aid Society on which Bevan had served as a committee member in the 1920s.
When he created the NHS, Bevan said, “All I am doing is extending to the entire population of Britain the benefits we had in Tredegar for a generation or more. We are going to ‘Tredegar-ise’ you.”
More from this author
Following the historic ban on companies profiting from children’s care, Unison Cymru calls for transparency in implementing the changes and extending the reform to create a truly national, profit-free care service, says MARK TURNER
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MARK TURNER is thrilled by the the British singer’s tribute to the late great Sarah Vaughan
MARK TURNER gets over his discomfort that US cultural imperialism means we know more about US subcultures than our own
