Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER

LAST autumn Keir Starmer faced an embarrassing scandal, as the MPs’ register showed he and his ministers were grabbing loads of free Taylor Swift tickets. It looked like childish, grubby freeloading.
High-sounding claims of a “government of service” looked unconvincing as Starmer and his ministers took freebies for Swift concerts — typically £500-£1,000 VIP tickets with “hospitality” — and other sporting and musical events. Thanks to newly published “transparency” registers, I can reveal it wasn’t just the MPs: loads of the backroom “special advisers” who direct Labour government policies got the Swift freebie fever too.
A new book by Times journalists Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund suggests Starmer wanted the prime minister’s job because of its prestige, but doesn’t have a strong political “mission,” leaving the political direction to his advisers.

US General Stanley McChrystal has been invited to advise on creating a ‘team of teams’ for healthcare transformation. His credentials? He previously ran interrogation bases where Iraqis were stripped naked and beaten, reports SOLOMON HUGHES

SOLOMON HUGHES explains how the PM is channelling the spirit of Reagan and Thatcher with a ‘two-tier’ nuclear deterrent, whose Greenham Common predecessor was eventually fought off by a bunch of ‘punks and crazies’

Israel’s combination of starvation, coercion and murder is part of a carefully concerted plan to ensure Palestinian compliance – as shown in leaked details about the sinister Gaza Humanitarian Foundation which reveal similarities to hunger manipulation projects in Vietnam, Malaya and Kenya, says SOLOMON HUGHES