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
Housing: how the Tories carefully erased working-class London
NICK WRIGHT argues that the transformation of once-radical boroughs like Battersea into desirable locations for the well-paid few sums up the story of how housing can be used as a political weapon — by the right and the left
(L to R): Balfron Tower in Tower Hamlets, and the building's architect Erno Goldfinger (left) on the balcony of his flat in the building, where he studied the impact of his design
[Richard Parmiter / Creative Commons] 
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
THIS YEAR, Labour took control of the council in the London boroughs of Wandsworth and Westminster. Nearly five decades of Tory control has made these places almost unaffordable for working people on a normal wage.
People today know the Wandsworth Tory council leader from these early times — Christopher “Chopper” Chope — as the “Jurassic era” MP who, more recently, blocked the passage of a private member’s Bill that would have made upskirting a specific offence.
But Chope had another vision — of a gentrified area denuded of Labour voters and the working class in general by a social-cleansing process built around the privatisation of the housing stock.
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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
