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
A STUDY released this week suggested a clear link between rising knife crime and the severe cuts to council funding — and in particular related to this, services for young people — that have taken place in recent years.
The study comes from the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime (APPG) of MPs and peers from across the parties, who looked at budgets for youth services from 2014-15 to 2017-18, and also analysed knife crime data.
These figures on youth service budgets were obtained by using freedom of information requests sent to 154 local authorities in England, of which 106 replied.
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



