ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT delve into the technicalities of famine classification to reveal a worldview in tatters

LAST autumn Keir Starmer faced an embarrassing scandal, as the MPs’ register showed he and his ministers were grabbing loads of free Taylor Swift tickets. It looked like childish, grubby freeloading.
High-sounding claims of a “government of service” looked unconvincing as Starmer and his ministers took freebies for Swift concerts — typically £500-£1,000 VIP tickets with “hospitality” — and other sporting and musical events. Thanks to newly published “transparency” registers, I can reveal it wasn’t just the MPs: loads of the backroom “special advisers” who direct Labour government policies got the Swift freebie fever too.
A new book by Times journalists Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund suggests Starmer wanted the prime minister’s job because of its prestige, but doesn’t have a strong political “mission,” leaving the political direction to his advisers.

MBDA’s Alabama factory makes components for Boeing’s GBU-39 bombs used to kill civilians in Gaza. Its profits flow through Stevenage to Paris — and it is one of the British government’s favourite firms, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES

SOLOMON HUGHES asks whether Labour ‘engaging with decision-makers’ with scandalous records of fleecing the public is really in our interests

Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES

There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES