SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war

A FEW days after the Independent Group (TIG) of MPs formed in the Commons, the Liberal Democrat strategist Mark Pack tweeted “who will be TIG’s Bill Rodgers?” It was an interesting question.
Despite having spent a year in formation with meetings at luxury hotels the breakaway MPs appeared without a proper name, no policies, no membership and no structure. Their cheerleaders in the media argue all these will appear over time.
The SDP which was formed in 1981 was a rather different and more substantial matter. On its founding day the Limehouse Declaration was published outlining its basic principles. Its roots went back much further than that though.

KEITH FLETT revisits the 1978 origins of Britain’s May Day bank holiday — from Michael Foot’s triumph to Thatcher’s reluctant acceptance — as Starmer’s government dodges calls to expand our working-class celebrations






