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

LAST week’s parliamentary debacle was a depressing affair. The Labour opposition failed to oppose a Bill that would permit agents of the imperial state to commit crimes without fear of the consequences that would be visited on Her Majesty’s less privileged subjects.
It illustrated just how far we are from the hopes and expectations that were engendered when, as recently as early last year, Jeremy Corbyn’s party was regularly clocking 40 per cent approval ratings.
Then the prospect of a left-led Labour government seemed more real to our ruling class than it did even to the most optimistic on our side of the class war. And they acted accordingly.

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