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

GEORGE OSBORNE, the former Tory chancellor of the Exchequer, has downsized his portfolio career and gone to work for a boutique bank.
His parting shot as he vacated the editor’s desk at the Evening Standard was a reflection on the long decline of British imperialism centred on what he characterises as the errors and omissions of a ruling class to which by birth, education, wealth and high offices of state he is wedded.
In Osborne’s conspectus it was the policy failures of the Lord North, Britain’s premier at the time, that led to the loss of the North American colonies and similar missteps which weakened resistance to Irish home rule.

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