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
Beautiful bleak winter fields
Winter is the prime season for field walking. DAVE BANGS hunkers down to see what can be found out on the Downs
"And there it was. . . A muddy, oval, “worked” chunk of flint about five inches long by three-and-a-half inches wide. Worn white by the weathering of millennia, but unmistakeable. An ovate hand-axe made by the ancient people."
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
WHEN the days are shortest and the nights come earliest, the bare, bleak, wide expanses of plough and fallow field come into their own. It’s only when the crops are taken and the ground is tilled that these lands reveal their oldest secrets.
At this time of year we tend to “field walk” until the dusk comes on, and only then to find a bit of bank or a log where we can sit and picnic.
This time, we weren’t ready after our picnic for our return walk until full darkness had come. We got our torches out and started to trudge back across the sticky gault clay fields. Wanting to snatch a bit more searching time, I trailed a bit behind Jane and swept the earth with my torch as I walked.
More from this author
From John Clare country to ancient fenland, Ed Miliband’s solar farm approvals risk industrialising precious rural spaces — we must find greener solutions that don’t sacrifice our countryside’s beauty, writes DAVE BANGS
Decades of right to buy have eroded the social balance of our countryside — and now holiday lets and second home owners from the cities are compounding the crisis, writes DAVE BANGS
Spring has sprung in all its glory — but DAVE BANGS is disturbed by the absence of a crucial sound
