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
The selling of illusions
KEITH FLETT looks at how statistics and voter preference analysis obscure what the majority of the electorate expects from their government
Morgan McSweeney in Downing Street, October 2024
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
DAVID BUTLER, who died at 98, was a key figure in how British elections were understood and analysed from the late 1940s on.
He authored books after each general election reviewing the results and was a familiar figure on BBC election night programmes. In that sense he is part of Britain’s post-1945 social history himself.
Michael Crick’s biography reveals that Butler’s original interest was in cricket statistics but on returning from service in the army in 1945 he found few matches being played and switched his attention to politics.
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JOE GILL looks at research on the reasons people voted as they did last week and concludes Labour is finished unless it ditches Starmer and changes course
DIANE ABBOTT looks at the whys and hows of Labour’s spectacular own goal
ANDREW MURRAY welcomes the inside story of Labour under Starmer for the revelations it offers as to who is pulling the strings
The sidelining of social democrats and embrace of deregulation comes at the same time as a remarkable collapse in public support for the current Labour regime, writes ANDREW MURRAY, so why don’t we go on the offensive?