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

AN anti-corruption investigation by Belgian police has scooped up a vice-president of the European Parliament, Greek MEP Eva Kaili; her partner Francesco Giorgi who is an adviser in the parliament and a figure in the Fight Impunity NGO; Kaili’s father Alexandros and a former MEP, Pier Antonio Panzeri.
In addition to a stash of €600,000 in cash, mobile phones and computers were also seized.
Since then another figure caught up in the sweep, Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, the secretary general of the NGO No Peace Without Justice — which shares prestigious offices with Fight Impunity — has been arrested, questioned, fitted with an electronic tag and released from custody.

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