That should be warning enough to end the company’s contract with the NHS, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Keir Starmer and the Labour’s supposed ‘broad church’
Normally in British politics, leftwingers defect right. Under Blair and now Starmer however, this trend seems to reverse, calling into question the ‘broad church’ that welcomes Tories and excludes socialists, writes KEITH FLETT

HISTORICALLY, political defections in Britain have tended to go from left to right.
Beyond individual renegades, there are two significant markers: Ramsay MacDonald’s decision to split Labour and form a national government in 1931 and the departure of right-wing Labour MPs to the SDP (now the Lib Dems) in the early 1980s.
The 1930s also offered two further examples of significant splits. The first was Oswald Mosley’s New Party, which led to fascism. The second was the Independent Labour Party (ILP), which tried to recreate an independent socialist presence outside of Labour but was unable to do so.
More from this author

Starmer’s slash-and-burn approach to disability benefits represents a fundamental break with Labour’s founding mission to challenge the idle rich rather than punish the vulnerable poor, argues KEITH FLETT

The formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 marked the beginning of interconnected and contested strategies — parliamentary and industrial — seeking ways to advance working-class interests, writes KEITH FLETT

KEITH FLETT looks back 50 years to when the Iron Lady was elected Tory leader…

The legacy of an 1820 conspiracy in revenge for Peterloo resonates down the ages, argues KEITH FLETT
Similar stories

Every few years, it seems like the ‘right time’ to build a new left party — but what are the right conditions, asks socialist historian KEITH FLETT, looking back at the last two centuries and the insights of Ralph Miliband and EP Thompson

Socialist historian KEITH FLETT traces the parallel evolution of violent loyalist rampages and the workers' movement's peaceful democratic crowds, highlighting the stark contrast between recent far-right thuggery and mass Gaza protests

How has Farage repeatedly failed to get elected to Parliament, but always succeeded in influencing parliamentary politics? KEITH FLETT looks at the tools available to the right and left locked outside of Westminster