RAMZY BAROUD on how Israel’s narrative collides with military failure
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Housing: how hard is it to keep people, not profit in mind?
House building must be ‘attractive’ to people who need a house, not to the for-profit private developers, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
ROGER McKENZIE explains how Ibrahim Traore has sparked the flames of hope across Africa, while the Western powers seek to extinguish all attempts to build true sovereignty in the long-exploited continent
DANIEL GOVER considers the procedural complexities awaiting a Private Member’s Bill in its passage through Commons and Lords
JAMIE TUCKNUTT reports on an initiative that brings together two epochs of the city’s anti-fascist struggles
Just as German Social Democrats joined the Nazis in singing Deutschland Uber Alles, ANDREW MURRAY observes how Starmer tries to out-Farage Farage with anti-migrant policies — but evidence shows Reform voters come from Tories, not Labour, making this ploy morally bankrupt and politically pointless
KEITH FLETT traces how the ‘world’s most successful political party’ has imploded since Thatcher’s fall, from nine leaders in 30 years to losing all 16 English councils, with Reform UK symbolically capturing Peel’s birthplace, Tamworth — but the beast is not dead yet
With turnout plummeting and faith in Parliament collapsing, BERT SCHOUWENBURG explains how radical local government reform — including devolved taxation and removal of party politics from town halls — could restore power to communities currently ignored by profit-obsessed MPs
LABOUR says if it is elected, their big idea to help the housing crisis is deregulation.
Everybody knows not enough houses are being built and the price of houses is too high, leaving many trapped in poor quality private rented accommodation or struggling with hard-to-afford mortgages. Labour proposes making planning laws more developer-friendly.
They hope that if developers find it easier to build on the green belt, overcome local rejection of proposed estates, or get free development areas in “new towns,” they will build more houses and prices will come down.
But the latest accounts of Bloor Homes, like the accounts of so many housebuilders, suggest this “market” solution to a market failure won’t work.
Bloor Homes are a mid-sized housebuilder, but one with a fair political influence. John Bloor is one of the Tories’ top donors, having given the party around £2.7 million since 2015.
The latest accounts, released this month but covering the year to June 2023, show Bloor Homes is finding the market a bit tighter. The accounts note that “increases in mortgage loan rates” have “made the landscape more challenging” for housebuilders, while they are also being squeezed by “cost inflation in our supply chains.”
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Labour’s pop-loving front bench have snaffled up even more music tickets worth thousands apiece, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
Secret consultation documents finally released after the Morning Star’s two-year freedom of information battle show the Home Office misrepresented public opinion, claiming support for policies that most respondents actually strongly criticised as dangerous and unfair, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war
Despite Labour’s promises to bring things ‘in-house,’ the Justice Secretary has awarded notorious outsourcing outfit Mitie a £329 million contract to run a new prison — despite its track record of abuse and neglect in its migrant facilities, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
