The Left LaneNews, views and analysis to support the new left

The soon-to-be PM’s new chief of staff used to work for Thames Water’s advisers. If Andy Burnham wants to be trusted on public ownership, he needs to prove it – starting now.

Over 1,900 drivers across ten garages are set to vote on strike action after years of being left to bake in cabins hitting the high 30s, while their employer dragged its feet on basic safety fixes. Even the mayor’s telling them: “Don't drive if it's too hot”.

Andy Burnham is said to support proportional representation. He’s also about to become prime minister thanks to one of first-past-the-post’s most undemocratic loopholes. ALAN STORY and KLAVS HENRIKSEN – writing from inside Denmark's PR system – explain how 25,000 voters got to decide for 69 million and why it doesn't have to be this way.

Our latest international news digest includes items on an Israeli-Lebanon ‘peace plan’, the founding of a new political party in Spain by the wife of Nick Clegg, the EU’s problematic visa strategy, Ukraine and the forthcoming NATO conference, a US declaration of war on South America and antisemitism false-flag attacks in Canada.

From child marriage decrees to bullets fired at protesters, the Taliban’s war on women grinds on unremarked, while Afghanistan’s men’s cricket team tours India and Canada. The ICC's silence is complicity.

Our latest international news digest includes items on the Colombian elections, European rearmament, EU immigration law, the Peruvian elections, reporting of the Israel-Palestine conflict and rifts in the Iranian diaspora in the UK.