As the government quietly upgrades the role of Britain’s special forces, their growing global footprint and near-total exemption from democratic oversight should alarm us all, says ROGER McKENZIE
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Labour's attack ads bang the Tory drum of hatred and division
When politicians are demonising Asian men, the rest of us must stand strong against dog-whistle politics, writes Claudia Webbe MP
Gutter politics: Sir Keir Starmer
By pressuring Mexico to halt oil shipments, Washington is escalating its blockade of Cuba into a direct bid for economic collapse and regime change, argues SEVIM DAGDELEN
A society that grows accustomed to ‘undesirable’ people also grows accustomed to undesirable deaths. Minneapolis serves as a wake-up call, including for our own refugee policies, writes MARC VANDEPITTE
Recent research pushes back the date of the earliest cave art by several thousand years. ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT look into the science applied
As Labour plans a centralised National Police Service, the resignation of a chief constable over the Maccabi football ban reveals how policing, technology and narrative management converge when public order and class power are at stake, says NICK WRIGHT
Sudan’s paramilitary attacked a Chadian military garrison, killing seven soldiers and prompting the government to issue a “final warning. PAVAN KULKARNI reports
LAST week saw the shameful scene of Labour publishing an attack ad that claimed that Rishi Sunak does not care about protecting children or jailing paedophiles. The ad appalled many, including Labour supporters — such behaviour is expected from the Tories but Labour is meant to be better. The ad was rightly and heavily criticised as dirty politics that exploited abused children.
It was also inaccurate and misleading. The Tories are an appalling party of government, but sentences are decided by the courts, not by Sunak — and the sentencing guidelines were not written in the short period since he took over as Prime Minister. As former chief prosecutor Nazir Afzal put it: “There are a thousand reasons to attack the Tories on a broken criminal justice system better than one that Rishi Sunak doesn’t control.”
The Labour campaign tweet was also hypocritical, as Keir Starmer as director of public prosecutions had played a central role in setting sentencing recommendations.
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