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 centre cannot hold
With the Italian far right poised to make major gains in the coming elections, NICK WRIGHT highlights the gulf between a complacent middle class and the vast class of working people facing deep economic and social problems, both in Italy and in Britain too
FAMILIAR PICTURE: Democratic Party leader Enrico Letta gives a speech as the party gets ready for elections next month
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
NEW elections in Italy are scheduled for September 25. The “stabilisation” government of former European Central Bank boss Mario Draghi finally fell apart.
Its notional “national unity” character did not survive the departure of the populist Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S) and the right-wing Lega and Forza Italia formations.
With its fragile parliamentary majority gone and with only the Partito Democratico (PD) and its right-wing breakaway Italia Viva and left-wing split Articolo Uno still standing and with M5S split with one faction remaining aligned with Draghi’s austerity economic regime, the game was up.
More from this author
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
