A landmark UN resolution led by Ghana declares the transatlantic slave trade the gravest crime against humanity — but Western opposition and abstentions reveal enduring resistance to historical accountability, write ISAAC SANEY and JAMES COUNTS EARLY
JULY saw two major new announcements on housing from the Labour Party. But the announcements, from Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and the new Labour Growth Group of MPs, propose very different things.
Rayner wrote an Observer article saying Labour must deal with the housing crisis because it blights people who need decent homes. Rayner said she wanted to help “families struggling to cover soaring rents and meet mounting mortgage costs,” and “tenants paying through the nose for damp, cramped and unsafe conditions.”
Rayner promised Labour would push for “the biggest wave of social and affordable housing in a generation.”
The 2025 Budget shores up the PM’s political position with headline-grabbing welfare U-turns, but with no improvements on offer to declining public services or living standards, writes MICHAEL BURKE
Building is the solution for much of our housing crisis – and will also help to address poverty, ill health, and even anti-social behaviour and alienation, writes KENNY MacASKILL
GLYN ROBBINS celebrates how tenant-led campaigning forced the government to drop Pay to Stay, fixed-term tenancies and council home sell-offs under Cameron — but warns that Labour’s faith in private developers will require renewed resistance
Despite Labour’s promises to bring things ‘in-house,’ the Justice Secretary has awarded notorious outsourcing outfit Mitie a £329 million contract to run a new prison — despite its track record of abuse and neglect in its migrant facilities, reports SOLOMON HUGHES



