We’re taking a break

This Is My Truth is taking a break as all Bevan Foundation staff, many contributors and a lot of readers will be on holiday over the next week.

Thanks to all our readers and contributors and see you on 5th September!

Home alone children

I have been haunted by an image from the riots two weeks ago. There were plenty of memorable and shocking images but this is not about the boy wearing Adidas in front of a burning car, nor the…

Riots should prompt a rethink

This month a great deal has been written in the media about the riots in major English cities, about what they represent and say about our society. Although there is a great deal of disagreement about the meaning, causes and solutions to the riots, the vast majority of the articles have one thing…

‘A’ level success hides real failure

I’m not an educationalist and I don’t know a huge amount about education policy either, but not knowing much doesn’t normally stop me commenting on something and it won’t do…

Bryn Roberts: A forgotton trade union hero (part 2)

BY 1939, NUPE had more than quadrupled its membership and annual income. But this was just the hors d’oeuvres.   By 1947, Roadmen wages had increased by over 100% and NUPE was a leading union in the fledgling NHS, campaigning for national wages and conditions, as well. By 1949 its…

Bryn Roberts – A forgotton trade union hero (part one)

The early months into 1929 were cold in Ebbw Vale. Of course the weather was cold in a constituency hewn out of the ever present coal mining industry, but within the local Labour party, a chill wind was…

Young Lives in Limbo

This week, the Welsh Refugee Council released a report: ‘Young Lives in Limbo: the protection of age disputed young people in Wales’. The report, the first of its kind in Wales, reveals how a lack of standardised guidelines…

Riot Special: Will we collectively rise to the challenge?

The events of last week in England have been shocking and disturbing and have provided an insight into a world of lawlessness and social disruption that any sane person will be desperate to avoid.  The usual reactions of politicians…

Who is higher education for?

‘Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university?’ asked Neil, famously, in 1987. It wasn’t because previous Kinnocks were thick or talentless or uncommitted: ‘it was because there was no…

Riots and Corporate Social Responsibility

Amongst the many, very different, analyses of last week’s riots there is one consistent theme: the desirability of the items that were looted. With a few notable exceptions (a case of bottled water, a waste paper bin), the…