The UK Prime Minister may have the regal touch in northern England, but he’s been wrong-footed on the constitutional challenges posed by the Celtic Alliance of first ministers from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, argues KENNY MacASKILL
THERE will be big protests at the Tory Party conference. There deserve to be. Their policies have led to poverty on a massive scale. They have decimated our public services, trampled over our liberties and are now happy to do almost zero to meet our obligations to reach net-zero emissions targets.
But this litany of failure is not simply an indictment of the Tories. It is also an indictment of their policies and everything they stand for.
I fervently hope that they will be gone after the next election; it is the task of the whole labour movement to ensure that they are. Yet it will be a pyrrhic victory if we do not ensure that their policies are ditched too. The country simply cannot afford to carry on in the old way.
A sharp rise in public-sector investment is required to kick-start the economy, argues MICHAEL BURKE
Only an ambitious programme of state-led investment can restore growth and improve living standards, argues MICHAEL BURKE
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


