Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER

WE are all Africans. If this comes as a nasty shock to any pure-bred Brits you know, break it to them gently. Their DNA is almost exactly the same as everybody else throughout the world.
And, in as far as there are differences, they are as likely to vary as much between near neighbours in any part of the world as they are to be different from anyone on the other side of the world. And not by a very significant amount.
Of course, for our pure-bred Brit inclined to vote for Reform UK, the Tories or Keir Starmer’s Labour, where the policy differences are hardly more differentiated than the DNA of British voters, such facts, even when acknowledged, don’t change much in their mode of thought.

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