TUC president and POA leader STEVE GILLAN speaks to Ben Chacko on the eve of Congress 2026
ON JUNE 5 1963 the Tory secretary of state for war John Profumo resigned following a sex scandal.
Profumo (who was schooled at Harrow, an elite boarding school for boys, followed by Oxford University where he became a member of the Bullingdon Club) had had a brief affair with a 19-year-old model, Christine Keeler, in 1961 who had also been involved with a naval official from the Russian embassy.
At the height of the Cold War these things mattered.
Andy Burnham could learn a few lessons from a previous Labour government in the pre-privatisation era on how to tackle water shortages, writes KEITH FLETT
Tony Benn’s constituents chose him by an overwhelming majority — but because he had inherited a peerage, parliamentary rules declared their choice invalid, writes MAT COWARD
Keir Starmer's early political life suggests a very different future from the one he ultimately embraced, says KEITH FLETT
The PM is drawing cautious distance from Donald Trump over Iran – but history suggests Britain’s support may run deeper than it appears, just as it did during the Vietnam war, says KEITH FLETT


