The Mandelson scandal reveals a political settlement in which democratic choice is curtailed and the power of markets eclipses the will of voters – only the left can challenge this, writes JON TRICKETT MP
TORY MP Jake Berry leads the Northern Research Group, the Conservative MPs who claim to know what voters in former Labour seats in the north really want. It turns out Berry thinks they want a fresh dose of Thatcherism.
They want deregulation and they want businessmen taking over local government, in a plan that was put together with the help of a giant bank with a history of big public subsidies and squeezing the “little” people.
This February, Berry co-wrote a widely reported policy pamphlet published by the Thatcherite Centre for Policy Studies — it called for a Northern Big Bang. You wouldn’t think northern voters are clamouring for Thatcherism, with what that did to the north last time, but Berry thinks otherwise.
CAROL WILCOX argues for the proper implementation of the land value tax, which could see unused plots sold off and landlords priced out of landlordism, potentially resolving the housing and planning crises
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
SOLOMON HUGHES asks whether Labour ‘engaging with decision-makers’ with scandalous records of fleecing the public is really in our interests
JOE GILL looks at research on the reasons people voted as they did last week and concludes Labour is finished unless it ditches Starmer and changes course



