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

IN THE voters’ popularity stakes Boris Johnson’s standing has vacillated wildly over the past year. The only point at which more voters had a positive rather than negative view of the Prime Minister was at the height of the NHS success in rolling out the vaccination programme.
The Ukraine crisis has given him some respite — Labour’s slim lead has lessened and Tory support is up by two points, as is the Greens’, but the Owen Paterson affair made a big dent and the unending series of revelations about Number 10 parties deepened distrust to the point where — as the Ukraine crisis began to worsen — only 35 per cent approved of him.
On the eve of the Russian invasion two thirds of voters disapproved of his performance and his positive rating was down to 21 per cent.

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