The NEU kept children and teachers safe during the pandemic, yet we are disgracefully slandered by the politicians who have truly failed our children by not funding a proper education recovery programme — here’s what is needed, explains KEVIN COURTNEY

BRITAIN has veered between general lockdowns and periods when we let Covid-19 generally run free.
Boris Johnson saw the choice as being between “lockdown” and his occasional preference for allowing infection to spread, “letting the bodies pile high in their thousands,” because his government ruled out a more traditional way of virus control — quarantining infected people.
The free marketeers thought a traditional quarantine would have been too great an interference in society. They thought proper public health measures would interfere with “the economy” and, as a result, messed up both health and the economy.

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