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

MASSIVE demonstrations, widespread strikes, violent clashes with the police and an air of crisis means Charles Windsor and his long-time consort were stuck in Blighty. With the full pomp of the French state unable to guarantee the passage of King Charles the Unready, President Macron has suffered an enormous blow.
Charles III was due a feast at Versailles. In the intervening centuries since the French beheaded their own king the palace has largely been spared violence — but this time the Mairie in Bordeaux was set alight while Paris has seen the biggest demonstrations and most violent police actions for some time.
Protest in France is frequently dramatic and routinely involves symbolic challenges to authority, blockages, burning signal flares and percussive devices.

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