VIJAY PRASHAD looks at the web of militias and drug-trafficking gangs that emerged in the Sweida region through the Syrian civil war, and how they relate to recent clashes and Israel’s intervention

IT IS a modern miracle how incredibly damaging Tory Budgets are given a warm welcome by the overwhelming majority of the media, the miraculous status undimmed by the fact that it happens year after year.
The consensus was that this week’s Budget was a “spend now, tax later” plan.
The opposite is true. Aside from measures to try to cope with the pandemic which a clearly reluctant Chancellor is obliged to extend, the substance of the latest Budget, like the 2020 Budget, is to cut spending and raise the taxes on working people now.

Our Foreign Secretary now condemns Israel in the Commons, yet Britain still supplies weapons and intelligence for its bombing campaigns — as the horror reaches perhaps the final stage, action must finally replace words, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP

The BBC and OBR claim that failing to cut disability benefits could ‘destabilise the economy’ while ignoring the spendthrift approach to tens of billions on military spending that really spirals out of control, argues DIANE ABBOTT MP

Europe is acquiescing in Trump’s manoeuvrings — where Europe takes over the US forever war in Ukraine while Washington gets ready for a future fight with China. And it’s working people who will be left paying the price, says DIANE ABBOTT MP

DIANE ABBOTT MP argues that Labour’s proposals contained in the recent white paper won’t actually bring down immigration numbers or win support from Reform voters — but they will succeed in making politics more nasty and poisonous