RAMZY BAROUD on how Israel’s narrative collides with military failure
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Alan Milburn’s private interests
Almost two decades ago he was the pro-PFI health secretary – now he and his family trouser millions from his consultancy work for private healthcare interests. Some political stances pay better than others, explains SOLOMON HUGHES
PROFITS: PFI man Alan Milburn
ROGER McKENZIE explains how Ibrahim Traore has sparked the flames of hope across Africa, while the Western powers seek to extinguish all attempts to build true sovereignty in the long-exploited continent
DANIEL GOVER considers the procedural complexities awaiting a Private Member’s Bill in its passage through Commons and Lords
JAMIE TUCKNUTT reports on an initiative that brings together two epochs of the city’s anti-fascist struggles
Just as German Social Democrats joined the Nazis in singing Deutschland Uber Alles, ANDREW MURRAY observes how Starmer tries to out-Farage Farage with anti-migrant policies — but evidence shows Reform voters come from Tories, not Labour, making this ploy morally bankrupt and politically pointless
KEITH FLETT traces how the ‘world’s most successful political party’ has imploded since Thatcher’s fall, from nine leaders in 30 years to losing all 16 English councils, with Reform UK symbolically capturing Peel’s birthplace, Tamworth — but the beast is not dead yet
With turnout plummeting and faith in Parliament collapsing, BERT SCHOUWENBURG explains how radical local government reform — including devolved taxation and removal of party politics from town halls — could restore power to communities currently ignored by profit-obsessed MPs
FORMER Labour health secretary Alan Milburn and his immediate family got a £2,141,000 payout from his corporate consultancy business this year, according to the latest accounts.
That’s up on their payout last year of £1.338m. Milburn himself gets the lion’s share of the money — by my rough calculation he will have taken about £1.5m of the dividend.
Milburn was the New Labour secretary of state for health from 1999-03 and he promoted NHS outsourcing, including buying NHS operations from private hospitals and PFI outsourcing, while in post.
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Labour’s pop-loving front bench have snaffled up even more music tickets worth thousands apiece, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
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SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war
Despite Labour’s promises to bring things ‘in-house,’ the Justice Secretary has awarded notorious outsourcing outfit Mitie a £329 million contract to run a new prison — despite its track record of abuse and neglect in its migrant facilities, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
