HENRY FOWLER, assistant general secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU), reports on Day 2 from the GFTU’s residential Summer School at the Workers’ Retreat, Quorn Grange Hotel
THE multimillionaire-led attempt to launch a new “centrist party” to beat Labour is up and running, but the branding is so bland you might mistake it for a new weight-loss product or an exciting online estate agent. Or even a new video-on-demand service.
It’s called United for Change, with the slogan: “They said change was impossible. Let’s show them it’s not.”
It is funded by Simon Franks. He set up DVDs-by-post service LoveFilm, then sold it to Amazon in 2011 for around £200 million.
Labour’s toxic centrists have wealthy backers but there’s little to suggest they can win over MPs or party members in an open fight, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
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
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


