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
Jobs for the boys... in space
With Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng's appointment of Lord David Willetts as the chair of the as-yet-unlaunched 'UK Space Agency,' Tory cronyism is potentially going where no man has gone before, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
Kwasi Kwarteng said Lord David Willetts “will bring a wealth of expertise to the role” — Willetts’s expertise includes a very long Tory career, beginning as a researcher for Margaret Thatcher, with stints as a minister under John Major and Cameron
Morning Star international editor ROGER McKENZIE says Trump’s ceaseless belligerence is a desperate effort to prevent the emergence of a multilateral world
Don’t dismiss Lebanon as a side theatre of this war, warns SEVIM DAGDELEN — there are signs Israel has expansion in mind, and it has demonstrated its willingness to expel and kill whole populations
The media present Starmer as staying out of Trump’s war — but we’re already deeply involved in a conflict that sees the US and Israel kill civilians on a huge scale, argues IAN SINCLAIR
LINDA PENTZ GUNTER reports on this week’s conference unveiling the findings of the Gaza Tribunal established by Jeremy Corbyn
CHRISTOPHE IMMER of the Morning Star’s German sister paper Junge Welt reports on a Berlin conference on the politics of art and the legacy of Marxist critic Hans Hess
BORIS JOHNSON’S Tory government is struggling to find a mission for itself, beyond just hanging on to look after the rich and look after their friends. Without much of a vision of the future, all that seems to be left is a kind of crony capitalism — with the emphasis on crony.
In the latest jobs for the boys move, Tory Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng appointed former Tory Business Minister David Willetts as chair of the UK Space Agency Board at the end of April. Willetts will help run the UK Space Agency, which spends around £500m a year of public money encouraging the British space sector, alongside Paul Bate, who was made chief executive last year.
To add to the crony-ish feel of the UK Space Agency, Bate was David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s “health policy” adviser during the Tory-led coalition government and went on to be “director of NHS services” at Tory-favoured health privatiser Babylon Health before joining the Space Agency. Before working for Cameron, Bate was a health adviser to then-PM Tony Blair, so he is not quite as narrowly party-political as David Willetts.
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