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

THE political left in Britain is in confused disarray. The 2019 general election, although it saw the second highest total of Labour votes in five general elections, has demoralised many.
The Tories won 365 seats on 43.6 per cent of the total votes. Labour won 262 seats on 32.1 per cent. It took about 38,264 votes to elect a Tory and 50,836 to elect a Labour MP.
In Scotland it took 511,838 votes to elect Labour’s single MP (and a spectacularly useless one at that) and just 25,882 votes to elect an SNP MP. It took 100,048 votes to elect a Scottish Tory which might just concentrate Conservative minds on the possibilities that proportional representation offers.

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