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
Emmanuel Macron falters as Melenchon rises
For the first time in decades, France’s president will not command a National Assembly majority — and the left-wing Nupes now makes up the second-largest bloc. But what next for this deeply divided progressive alliance, asks NICK WRIGHT
Jean-Luc Melenchon casts his ballot in the first round of the parliamentary election, Sunday, June 12, 2022 in Marseille, southern France.
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
THE Sunday night takeaway from the French legislative elections was that the political creation of two times President Emmanuel Macron, running as Ensemble, had lost its parliamentary majority.
This was a big defeat for the EU establishment, the big-business and banker caste of neoliberals who dispose of political, social and economic power in the French Republic.
Nupes, the new electoral alliance of Jean-Luc Melenchon’s La France Insoumise (“France unbowed”), Greens, communists and socialists has arrived at second place — and on the far right Marie Le Pen’s Rassemblement National reaped the benefit of Macron’s maladroit strategy to come a strong third.
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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
