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

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.

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