The crew of the Freedom Flotilla boat, Handala, warned Israel to obey international law but are now in captivity, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

IN CHRIS MULLIN’S televised 1982 novel A Very British Coup, Harry Perkins — played by an entirely convincing Ray McNally — is a left-wing Sheffield MP.
Set in the last decades of the 20th century the story has Perkins becoming prime minister and breaking with all Labour tradition by implementing a progressive programme.
Inevitably dismantling media monopolies, nuclear disarmament, withdrawing from Nato and measures to change the balance of class power galvanise the ruling class to plan his downfall.

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