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
2012 to nothing: lions led by donkeys
What has happened since the night of hope and ambition that was the London Olympics opening ceremony, asks PAUL DONOVAN
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
“WHAT a difference eight years makes,” I thought following a recent visit to the London Stadium to report for the Star on the West Ham match with Watford. No fans in the ground, an eerie atmosphere, with the players’ shouts and the journalists’ commentaries the only things breaking the silence.
What a contrast with the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, which the stadium played host to. It was one of those strange quirks of fate that a rerun of that ceremony was televised on the same night as that football match.
The opening ceremony was a masterpiece from film director Danny Boyle and his team, showing the many different aspects of Britain. There was the history of the industrial revolution, the factory towers reaching up into the night sky, the tribute to the NHS and the Windrush generation.
More from this author
From Gaza protest bans to proscribing Palestine Action, political elites are showing a crisis of confidence as they abandon Roy Jenkins’s apologetic approach for Suella Braverman’s aggressive ‘hate march’ rhetoric, writes PAUL DONOVAN
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by a deep dive into contemporary social crises, that examines how they are manipulated by elites
PAUL DONOVAN applauds a timely play that explores the resonances of McCarthyite nationalism in today’s US
