Apart from a bright spark of hope in the victory of the Gaza motion, this year’s conference lacked vision and purpose — we need to urgently reconnect Labour with its roots rather than weakly aping the flag-waving right, argues KIM JOHNSON MP

THERE is a professor on the TV telling you that Britain is run by a “new elite of radical, woke, middle-class liberals” who want to stop you from feeling “British” enough — and that it is the real problem, not the “old elite” which is “defined by its extreme wealth.”
So what does it matter if both the professor and the channel are backed by the Dubai-based investment firm of a New Zealand billionaire? Somebody who is distinctly not British, but is very wealthy, is paying somebody else to tell us we should worry about “Britishness,” and worry about immigration and gender — but not worry about extreme wealth.
It sounds like somebody is using a lot of money to play a very obvious sleight of hand.

The new angle from private firms shmoozing their way into public contracts was the much-trumpeted arrival of ‘artificial intelligence’ — and no-one seemed to have heard the numerous criticisms of this unproven miracle cure, reports SOLOMON HUGHES

It is rather strange that Labour continues to give prestigious roles to inappropriate, controversy-mired businessmen who are also major Tory donors. What could Labour possibly be hoping to get out of it, asks SOLOMON HUGHES

Keir Starmer’s hiring Tim Allan from Tory-led Strand Partners is another illustration of Labour’s corporate-influence world where party differences matter less than business connections, writes SOLOMON HUGHES

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