TUC general secretary PAUL NOWAK speaks to the Morning Star’s Berny Torre about the increasing frustration the trade union movement feels at a government that promised change, but has been too slow to bring it about

STANLEY KUBRICK made Dr Strangelove sixty years ago.
This black comedy is old enough to be filmed in black and white, but remains a compelling film because the characters seem to recur in real life: like Strangelove himself, the sinister adviser who pushes a horrible, heartless plan of war and death on a hapless president. Or General Ripper, the macho military man who goes a bit “funny in the head.” And, of course, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, representing the British, who flap about in a vague, posh way while being dragged along by US military adventures.
It’s fairly common for US presidents to have a “Strangelove” figure: many thought he was based on Henry Kissinger, who “Strangeloved” for successive presidents, although he was actually drawn from earlier characters including Cold War “intellectual” Herman Kahn.

Keir Starmer’s hiring Tim Allan from Tory-led Strand Partners is another illustration of Labour’s corporate-influence world where party differences matter less than business connections, writes SOLOMON HUGHES

MBDA’s Alabama factory makes components for Boeing’s GBU-39 bombs used to kill civilians in Gaza. Its profits flow through Stevenage to Paris — and it is one of the British government’s favourite firms, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES

SOLOMON HUGHES asks whether Labour ‘engaging with decision-makers’ with scandalous records of fleecing the public is really in our interests

Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES