BEN CHACKO reports on fears at TUC Congress that the provisions in the legislation are liable to be watered down even further

THE privatised military “married quarters” housing is widely accepted to be of miserable quality, leaving service families in grim, damp, mouldy, sometimes vermin-infested properties. It’s a scandal referred to last week, but it’s worth more attention.
Looking closely, it’s remarkable how many “political insiders” are making money from the businesses behind the miserable houses. The whole affair shows that the politicians who like to talk about “patriotism” and “the importance of the armed forces” also seem happy to leave soldiers and their families to live in squalor.
In 1996, the then-Tory government sold all military “married quarters” houses to Annington Homes. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) then leases back the 38,000 homes to house military families. The houses are now known as service families accommodation, because servicemen and women can have families without being married.

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