Apart from a bright spark of hope in the victory of the Gaza motion, this year’s conference lacked vision and purpose — we need to urgently reconnect Labour with its roots rather than weakly aping the flag-waving right, argues KIM JOHNSON MP

HUNDREDS of low-paid train cleaners are striking and campaigning for better pay. The cleaners, RMT union members who work for subcontractor Churchill Cleaning, want £15 an hour instead of their current measly minimum wage rates of £8.91.
On one side you have low-paid strikers under the banner “justice for Churchill Cleaners: fight for £15.” On the other, employers who say they can’t afford to pay it. But follow the money and you can see it flows from minimum wage workers in Britain to people living it up in a Beverly Hills Mansion.
The strikers clean stations and trains across London and the south-east. They make Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern, Southeastern and Eurostar trains tidy and rubbish-free.

The new angle from private firms shmoozing their way into public contracts was the much-trumpeted arrival of ‘artificial intelligence’ — and no-one seemed to have heard the numerous criticisms of this unproven miracle cure, reports SOLOMON HUGHES

It is rather strange that Labour continues to give prestigious roles to inappropriate, controversy-mired businessmen who are also major Tory donors. What could Labour possibly be hoping to get out of it, asks SOLOMON HUGHES

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