The Greater Manchester mayor has shifted left over the years — but his record still shows a tendency to wobble when pressure comes from the right, says SOLOMON HUGHES

Transparency records reveal senior trade officials held dinners and strategy meetings with the notorious lobbying firm even as controversy over its Epstein links deepened, says SOLOMON HUGHES

Inspectors have uncovered systemic failures at a Tory-linked institution in London, where students pay thousands but standards are undermined. SOLOMON HUGHES reports

The former Nato chief stirred up dark historical undercurrents with his call to cut welfare for military spending, says SOLOMON HUGHES

The British outsourcing giant quietly deleted mention of training US immigration agents after killings in Minneapolis intensified scrutiny of its controversial contracts. SOLOMON HUGHES reports

SOLOMON HUGHES says even electoral defeat isn’t a deterrent to right-wing MPs: pro-corporate policies might lose elections but they can be lucrative nonetheless

SOLOMON HUGHES recommends Sunjeev Sahota’s recent novel set in a trade union election campaign for its fresh approach to what unites and divides workers, but wishes the union backdrop was truer to life

SOLOMON HUGHES uncovers government documents showing hidden dinners and meetings between Labour figures and disgraced Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm, which collapsed after links to Epstein and sleazy influence operations came to light

Ministers say scrapping Ofwat will toughen oversight of scandal-hit water firms. But merging environmental and economic regulation and openly courting private investors suggest the failures of privatisation are set to continue. SOLOMON HUGHES reports

The Starmer-linked group’s hiring of a lobbying firm to peddle a bogus ‘Russian hack’ smear against journalists has erupted into scandal — but outrage has surfaced only because the target was the mainstream press, says SOLOMON HUGHES

The PM says Mandelson 'betrayed our values' – but ministers and advisers flock to line their pockets with corporate cash, says SOLOMON HUGHES

A Vatican photo-op, a hard-right donor and a rhetoric of mass deportations reveal how appeals to ‘Christian values’ are being reshaped by Reform and Tory MPs, says SOLOMON HUGHES

The Labour Growth Group and its think tank partner, the Good Growth Foundation, have taken funding from major lobbying firms linked to housebuilders, banks and Heathrow – raising questions about corporate influence at the heart of Starmer’s pro-growth project. SOLOMON HUGHES reports

SOLOMON HUGHES says Starmer has done everything the Westminster set think Labour leaders should do – but it hasn’t endeared him to the public

SOLOMON HUGHES finds the government went along with a US scheme to distract from Israel’s lethal Gaza blockade with an impractical floating pier scheme – though its own officials knew it wouldn’t work

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

SOLOMON HUGHES examines the shift in Labour rhetoric on racism and Reform UK – and what’s driving it

The shadow lord chancellor has recently made a name for himself as an rabid hater of immigration – but there are exceptions to every rule, says SOLOMON HUGHES

SOLOMON HUGHES finds one-time Cameron-centrist EU fans now promote vicious anti-migrant rhetoric in their bid to get attention for their ailing party

Farage and other Reform-ers keep pointing to Dubai’s immigration policy – but there migrants make up most of the population and do all the work without any rights, muses SOLOMON HUGHES

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