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

JUST over three months ago the polling organisation YouGov published the results of a survey which showed Labour Party members in a radical state of mind.
Only 3 per cent opposed the party’s signature policies of mail, rail, energy and water nationalisation; nine out of 10 wanted a 50 per cent top rate tax on incomes over £150,000 a year; two-thirds favoured full nuclear disarmament when Trident finally sinks beneath the waves, and two-thirds were for scrapping anti-union laws.
On a range of other issues party members showed remarkable fidelity to the main policy advances of the Corbyn years — on carbon emissions, the abolition of private schools, for free tuition, free broadband, a shorter working week, compensation for the Waspi women and a 20:1 pay ratio for all employees.

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