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 battle for Labour’s political identity is shaping up as a contest between malign myth and rational enquiry; between the dead weight of a dying tradition and the adult stirrings of a new sense of collective values; between the zombie politics of capitalist consensus and a new politics of class combativity.
It is taken as the common ground of Labour politics that New Labour’s corpse is dead and buried.
That, while a balanced accounting of the New Labour years will allow for the positive effects of some policies — particularly around early-years provision and NHS spending — the two key features of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s political project are history.

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