Fertiliser chaos triggered by Gulf conflict could send prices soaring and leave millions facing devastating hunger, writes DYLAN MURPHY
AS what I would hope is the last Labour conference before a general election begins, it’s a good time to assess the state of the country and politics in general.
The picture is a bleak one. A cost-of-living crisis which has got no better as winter once again sets in, public services on their knees, industrial strife and communities across the country strangled by a lack of investment. When Labour wins the next election there is a huge amount of work to do.
At the same time, the past week has seen the Conservative Party in Manchester seeking to perform what looks like an impossible feat.
At the very moment Britain faces poverty, housing and climate crises requiring radical solutions, the liberal press promotes ideologically narrow books while marginalising authors who offer the most accurate understanding of change, writes IAN SINCLAIR
While Hardie, MacDonald and Wilson faced down war pressure from their own Establishment, today’s leadership appears to have forgotten that opposing imperial adventures has historically defined Labour’s moral authority, writes KEITH FLETT
DAVID RABY reports on the progressive administration in Mexico, which continues to overcome far-left wreckers on the edges of a teaching union, the murderous violence of the cartels, the ploys of the traditional right wing, and Trump’s provocations
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



