Both Conservative and Labour administrations have now refused to release research showing PIP payments are vital for disabled people’s survival, exposing the ideological nature of planned welfare ‘reforms,’ writes Dr DYLAN MURPHY
We face worse than Sunak’s Tories if Labour doesn’t deliver
We have a chance to offer not just a better standard of life, but a politics of meaning and hope if we win power – otherwise, all signs point to a hard-right politics of hatred taking hold, warns IAN LAVERY MP

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.
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