Politicians who continue to welcome contracts with US companies without considering the risks and consequences of total dependency in the years to come are undermining the raison d’etre of the NHS, argues Dr JOHN PUNTIS
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From Grenfell to Versailles: the cosy club where corporate killers meet ministers
SOLOMON HUGHES exposes how executives behind lethal cladding have pocketed £302 million since the tragedy, as Labour frontbenchers continue to schmooze at luxury conferences funded and organised by implicated firms
The Grenfell Memorial Wall in west London, September 3, 2024
MISH RAHMAN introduces the platform of a new organisation within Your Party, which will campaign for the highest level of democracy, accountability and participation, having learned from the mistakes of Labour in the 2015-19 era
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ANDREW MURRAY wonders what the great communist foe of Oswald Mosley would make of today’s far-right surge, warning that while the triumph of Farage and ‘Robinson’ is far from inevitable, placing any faith in Starmer in an anti-fascist front is a fool’s errand
LOTTE COLLETT welcomes the arrival of a new party for the left, a vehicle for councils to finally fight for progressive policies on housing, green spaces and public facilities, rather than administering cuts and misery from central government
KEVAN NELSON reports back from a delegation to the epic celebrations for the anniversary of Vietnam’s 1945 revolution, where British communists found a thriving, prosperous socialist country, brimming with ambition and well-earned national pride
HOW was the Grenfell fire allowed to happen? The seven-year inquiry considered this question in great detail. But if you look at what has happened to some of those involved since the fire, it is pretty obvious.
This June, the Times published a useful investigation by its journalist Martina Lees, who has done a lot of investigative work on building safety. Lees looked at the fate of bosses of the firms implicated in Grenfell, after the fire.
“Bosses of Arconic, Kingspan and Saint-Gobain — which manufactured parts of the west London tower’s lethal flammable cladding system — have received a total of £302.3 million since 72 people died in the disaster seven years ago.”
As Lees says: “All three manufacturers had made fire-safety claims about their panels that turned out to be false.”
Let’s look at one of these bosses. Pierre-Andre de Chalendar was the long-standing chief executive of French construction firm Saint-Gobain. He is now the chair of the company.
Lees found: “Since the fire, Saint-Gobain has paid its chief executive Pierre-Andre de Chalendar £11.7m.”
St Gobain’s British subsidiaries, Celotex and St Gobain UK, made most of the flammable Grenfell insulation. St Gobain bought Celotex in 2013. Evidence at the Grenfell inquiry shows St Gobain pressured Celotex to increase profits by selling insulation for higher buildings.
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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
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SOLOMON HUGHES asks whether Labour ‘engaging with decision-makers’ with scandalous records of fleecing the public is really in our interests
