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

ARMS FIRMS want to buy their way into political influence and the All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) are one of the many channels they use.
APPGs are very lightly regulated informal groups of MPs that often rely on outside funding for organising trips and events. MPs on the Committee on Standards are investigating whether APPGs are really a channel for lobbying Parliament.
It’s not hard to find examples: according to the latest Register of MPs’ Interests, at the end of September Tory MPs Sarah Atherton, Bob Blackman, Flick Drummond, James Gray, Sheryll Murray, James Sunderland and Labour MP Sarah Champion had a three-day trip with the Armed Forces APPG “to meet current politicians from Bosnia and Herzegovina and to learn about the Bosnian War.”

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

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

US General Stanley McChrystal has been invited to advise on creating a ‘team of teams’ for healthcare transformation. His credentials? He previously ran interrogation bases where Iraqis were stripped naked and beaten, reports SOLOMON HUGHES