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

WE have become accustomed to the phenomenon by which the literary labour of Paul Mason, with the inevitability of a natural process, gives rise to its own negation.
After acquiring an enthusiasm for Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party the lapsed Trotskyite — reacting to the disruption of a Labour rally by pro-EU elements — tweeted: “I am sick of these astroturf elitists … it’s all prep for a millionaire funded ‘centrist party’ that will unleash illegal wars, benefit cuts and drive wages to the bottom.”
Months later he was arguing in the New Statesman for a second EU referendum just as the millionaire-funded Change UK centrist party was created precisely to facilitate that very thing.

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