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 bosses at the BBC must be relieved that, unlike their more commercial competitors, its day-to-day income does not rely on advertising revenue streams tied to their audience viewing figures.
Negative audience reaction to the wall-to-wall coverage of the not entirely unanticipated death of a 99-year-old man has come as a surprise to those coteries of courtiers whose life’s work is to fawn upon the House of Windsor and trumpet every anniversary, every birth, every engagement and of course, every death as if it is of momentous importance to the entire nation.
As it pulled its entire schedule on all its domestic channels BBC2 television took a spectacular 60 per cent hit on its viewing figures.

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