Labour’s persistent failure to address its electorate’s salient concerns is behind the protest vote, asserts DIANE ABBOTT
This month there were two big stories on the Covid pandemic. Firstly, the House of Commons standards and privileges committee investigation found ex-prime minister Boris Johnson “deliberately misled” Parliament over his Covid rule-breaking parties.
Secondly, the news website Open Democracy got hold of a secret document proving the government knew it worked to the “detriment” of care homes during Covid, where thousands of residents died, and did so in part because most social care has been privatised.
The opposition and news media concentrated almost entirely on the former, largely ignoring the latter. It suggested they care more about bad behaviour at parties than life-and-death social policies.
After a ruinous run at Tolkien, the streaming platforms are moving on to Narnia — a naff mix of religious allegory, colonial attitudes, and thinly veiled prejudices that is beyond rescuing, writes STEPHEN ARNELL



