SOLOMON HUGHES recommends Sunjeev Sahota’s recent novel set in a trade union election campaign for its fresh approach to what unites and divides workers, but wishes the union backdrop was truer to life
KEIR STARMER’S recent visit to a Burnley plastics factory shows how Labour’s “moderates” approach politics like a kind of amateurish performance, where something called “back story” is meant to substitute for policy.
Starmer was touring the What More UK factory: they are a mid-sized firm making plastic homewares. If you own a “Wham” brand bucket, jug or other useful plastic household item it was made by their 270 or so staff.
A Guardian report tries to be positive but makes the event sound very sad. According to the paper, instead of a rousing canteen meeting with the workers, with Starmer saying what Labour could do for them, “he told his family history at length to any worker who would listen as he roamed the factory.”
While Reform poses as a workers’ party, a credible left alternative rooted in working-class communities would expose their sham — and Corbyn’s stature will be crucial to its appeal, argues CHELLEY RYAN
The Tories’ trouble is rooted in the British capitalist Establishment now being more disoriented and uncertain of its social mission than before, argues ANDREW MURRAY
Ben Chacko talks to ALAN MARDGHUM of the Durham Miners Association about Reform UK‘s dangerous inroads into Durham’s long-standing Labour county council; why he cancelled his party membership; and the political class’s disconnect from working people
JOE GILL looks at research on the reasons people voted as they did last week and concludes Labour is finished unless it ditches Starmer and changes course



