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

“NEVER believe anything until it’s officially denied.” Seldom has Daily Worker journalist Claude Cockburn’s famous dictum been more apt.
Speaking on BBC Any Questions earlier this month, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland said: “I do take issue with this idea that at any stage herd immunity was part of the [government’s] plan. It wasn’t.”
His claim reiterated Matt Hancock’s denial in the Sunday Telegraph on March 15. “Herd immunity is not a part of” the government’s plan to deal with coronavirus, the Health Secretary asserted. “That is a scientific concept, not a goal or a strategy.”

New releases from Steady Habits, Jeff Tweedy, and Tom Skinner

IAN SINCLAIR welcomes a lucid critique of a technology that reproduces and enables oppression, power, and environmental devastation

Reviews of new releases by Wednesday, Suede, and Nation of Language

Reviews of new releases by Jens Lekman, Big Thief, and Christian McBride Big Band