State machinery was widely employed to secure favourable outcomes in India’s recent regional elections against three progressive regional governments who dared to challenge Narendra Modi, asserts VIJAY PRASHAD
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What’s the point of a new centrist party?
More plotting is afoot – but to what end, wonders CONRAD LANDIN
Jonathan Powell and JK Rowling
It is too early to assume a US defeat in Iran — we must prepare for a long anti-war struggle, argues JOHN ROSS
ROGER McKENZIE says the ANC needs to respect South Africa’s Communists and their decision to stand independently at elections
KENNY MacASKILL remembers the woman who first translated The Communist Manifesto into English
The election offers a critical chance to shape the future of pay, care and community provision in Wales, says Unison’s JESS TURNER
As Scotland heads to the polls, the main parties offer variations on the same script, says MATT KERR
THE Countdown has begun. Rachel Riley, who replaced Carol Vorderman on the BBC puzzle show in 2009, was said to be in secret talks last week with Harry Potter author JK Rowling and Jonathan Powell, who served as Tony Blair’s chief of staff in No 10, on the prospects of a new centrist party.
It would be a modelled on Angela Merkel’s CDU, the Sun’s Steve Hawkes suggested. But given the unlikely prospect of Chris Leslie and Chuka Umunna understanding a German political tradition, this probably stands not for Christian Democratic Union — but Centrist Dads Unlimited.
The plotters met at the offices of Rowling’s agent Neil Blair, the Mail on Sunday reported, to develop plans “to launch a breakaway Labour Party within weeks.” So described not because of any connection to organised labour — but because the small number of MPs sucked in are all likely to be disaffected rightwingers of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
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Martin Taylor, the hedge-fund multimillionaire who has poured millions into pushing Labour rightwards, helped finance Lucy Powell’s supposedly dissenting campaign — suggesting her victory was not the ‘soft-left’ rebellion some have claimed, says SOLOMON HUGHES
Every Starmer boast about removing asylum-seekers probably wins Reform another seat while Labour loses more voters to Lib Dems, Greens and nationalists than to the far right — the disaster facing Labour is the leadership’s fault, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP
The fallout from the Kneecap and Bob Vylan performances at Glastonbury raises questions about the suitability of senior BBC management for their roles, says STEPHEN ARNELL
STEPHEN ARNELL examines whether Starmer is a canny strategist playing a longer game or heading for MacDonald’s Great Betrayal, tracing parallels between today’s rightward drift and the 1931 crisis