The Tories introduced the 50% strike ballot threshold to make industrial action harder. MATT WRACK argues that a Labour government has no justification for leaving it on the statute book
BUSINESS SECRETARY Jonathan Reynolds chose to make a personal keynote appearance at Labour conference with Starling Bank: 10 days later, Starling was fined £28 million for “shockingly lax” failures to screen criminals and sanctioned individuals from accounts.
Reynolds sat for an “In Conversation” event at Labour’s Liverpool conference. These In Conversation events are the most personal (or egotistical) conference events, set up like a two-seater chat show with the minister as the “star.”
The Reynolds event with a Bloomberg correspondent, Lizzy Burden, was organised by key Starmer-supporting organisation Labour Together in front of a limited audience inside its conference marquee.
Bezalel Smotrich’s measures to extend Israeli property law into the West Bank are a continuation of a decades-long project to dispossess Palestinians and preclude statehood, argues HUGH LANNING
JOHN GREEN argues that the spreading practice of closing bank account without proof of criminality is an infringement of an elementary human right
Once derided by Farage as a ‘fraud,’ Jenrick has defected to Reform, bringing experience and political ruthlessness to the populist right — and raising the unsettling prospect of a Farage-led movement with a seasoned operative pulling the strings, says ANDREW MURRAY
SOLOMON HUGHES asks whether Labour ‘engaging with decision-makers’ with scandalous records of fleecing the public is really in our interests


