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
I remember Thatcher: she devastated Britain
Thatcher’s ‘solution’ to the decline of the post-war settlement was to destroy much of our manufacturing base and throw millions out of work and into poverty, explains JON TRICKETT MP
Deindustrialisation was brutal — it left whole communities lost and bewildered. Across the north of England, there were nearly a million manufacturing jobs lost in 12 years. A further 600,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the Midlands in the same period.
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
NOW and then, discussions arise about Margaret Thatcher. I am always amused to read the views of people who were not around at the time of her election in 1979. Obviously, it doesn’t stop you from having an opinion about her — but you would have to be at least 62 years old to have been old enough to vote for her in 1979.
I was around at that time on the left of the Labour Party. I was first elected as a councillor at Leeds in the middle of her assault on the mining communities and I was the council leader who was forced to bring in her detested poll tax. I was there when the poll tax was repealed.
At the finish, she couldn’t even win the votes of her own cabinet who removed her in the brutal way in which the Tories excel when they want to put an end to their leaders.
More from this author
The British economy is failing to deliver for ordinary people. With the upcoming Spending Review, Labour has the opportunity to chart a different course – but will it do so, asks JON TRICKETT MP
JON TRICKETT MP says the tools already exist to stop price-gouging by the energy fat cats
The last 14 years have completely disproven the economic myths the Tories used to set us on the path of cuts and devastation – we need massive direct investment to rebuild the post-industrial communities, writes JON TRICKETT
JON TRICKETT calls for a renewed commitment to driving up safety standards in all workplaces
