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
What we should expect from 2024?
The coming year will likely see Trump return to the White House and a ‘centrist’ Labour return to Parliament – we need to be organised to deal with both, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP
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
IF 2023 was a year to remember, it was largely for the wrong reasons. This is especially true for the Palestinian people or for anyone who favours peace over war, or human development over massacres.
But if we are looking for some grounds for optimism, it seems very likely that the assault on Gaza will end in 2024. If that is not the case then, through a combination of bombardment, starvation and disease, there will be almost nothing left of the Palestinian people.
All those political leaders and parties, mainly in the Nato countries, who oppose a ceasefire now will bear their share of responsibility for this. Of course, there have been forced expulsions and genocides before, unfortunately including many on a much larger scale than Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians now. The Nakba itself was on a much greater scale.
More from this author
Our Foreign Secretary now condemns Israel in the Commons, yet Britain still supplies weapons and intelligence for its bombing campaigns — as the horror reaches perhaps the final stage, action must finally replace words, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP
The BBC and OBR claim that failing to cut disability benefits could ‘destabilise the economy’ while ignoring the spendthrift approach to tens of billions on military spending that really spirals out of control, argues DIANE ABBOTT MP
Europe is acquiescing in Trump’s manoeuvrings — where Europe takes over the US forever war in Ukraine while Washington gets ready for a future fight with China. And it’s working people who will be left paying the price, says DIANE ABBOTT MP
DIANE ABBOTT MP argues that Labour’s proposals contained in the recent white paper won’t actually bring down immigration numbers or win support from Reform voters — but they will succeed in making politics more nasty and poisonous
