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
DOES it matter Keir Starmer tore up the “10 pledges” that got him elected Labour leader? His centrist defenders say this is just grown-up politics-as-normal. It’s just some sad butthurt lefties moaning.
But this is precisely the problem: Starmer abandoning his pledges is politics-as-normal. But relentless Tory victories are also politics-as-normal.
Working people paying for every crisis is politics-as-normal.
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
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



