There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES

IN TWO weeks’ time, we go to the polls. It is no exaggeration to say that the outcome will shape the politics not only of the next parliament but of the next decade and beyond.
If Boris Johnson’s refashioned Tory Party gains a majority, the country will be set on a course in which a separation from the political structures of the European Union will mask a continuing convergence with the neoliberal policies which are a condition of EU membership and to which our ruling class is equally wedded.
It seems to have eluded the grasp of some on the left that the deal which Theresa May reached with the EU — and the slightly modified one which the EU reached with Johnson — are as much the property of the EU as our Tory premiers.

Holding office in local government is a poisoned chalice for a party that bases its electoral appeal around issues where it has no power whatsoever, argues NICK WRIGHT

From Gaza complicity to welfare cuts chaos, Starmer’s baggage accumulates, and voters will indeed find ‘somewhere else’ to go — to the Greens, nationalists, Lib Dems, Reform UK or a new, working-class left party, writes NICK WRIGHT

There is no doubt that Trump’s regime is a right-wing one, but the clash between the state apparatus and the national and local government is a good example of what any future left-wing formation will face here in Britain, writes NICK WRIGHT

European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde sees Trump’s many disruptions as an opportunity to challenge the dollar’s ‘exorbitant privilege’ — but greater Euro assertiveness will also mean greater warmongering and militarism, warns NICK WRIGHT