With the death of Pope Francis, the world loses not only a church leader but also a moral compass

THE narrow win for Kim Leadbeater in the Batley and Spen by-election is down — in part — to an impressive Get Out The Vote operation.
It seems that a still-intelligent element in Labour’s apparatus has learnt from the Momentum surge tactics and perhaps, from Stalin’s famous aphorism that once the political line has been determined, organisation decides all.
The party machinery pulled out all the stops — something it will not be able to achieve in every constituency during a general election — and in doing so demonstrated how much more effective Labour’s ground operation could be if the apparatus worked in unity with the membership rather than witch-hunted activists on the left.

The left must avoid shouting ‘racist’ and explain that the socialist alternative would benefit all


