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
POLITICIANS are allowed to change their minds, especially when facts change. They are also allowed to change policies, otherwise every manifesto would be the same as the last one.
But what the voters do not accept is being hoodwinked. And they thoroughly reject policies that will make them worse off. In the decision to drop the Labour Party’s £28 billion green investment plan, Keir Starmer is guilty of both.
The decision to cut the investment programme (the Financial Times says that it has been cut to £4.7bn a year) is shocking but not surprising.
The BBC and OBR claim that failing to cut disability benefits could ‘destabilise the economy’ while ignoring the spendthrift approach to tens of billions on military spending that really spirals out of control, argues DIANE ABBOTT MP
Under current policy, welfare cuts are just a small downpayment on future austerity, argues MICHAEL BURKE



