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

AS the days get longer the Health Security Agency has suggested that the latest coronavirus variant, omicron, appears less likely to cause a serious illness or result in hospitalisation than the previously dominant variant.
One conclusion reached on the right of politics is that the threat from Covid is overblown and infection is now no more serious than a minor affliction. This is the unstated but underlying thinking of the “no constraints on business” faction.
If omicron has a reduced effect on some of the infected than earlier variants then this is good news for those individuals.

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