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

WHEN Sir Keir Starmer said Margaret Thatcher had effected “meaningful change” he was, briefly, in accord with majority opinion.
If Thatcher transformed post-war Britain she was not the first. Clement Attlee, who led the post-war Labour government that introduced the National Health Service and nationalised the key industries — rail and road transport, coal and steel — that were essential if the profitability of British capitalism was to continue, was first.
His predecessor, Winston Churchill, wanted to preserve Britain’s imperial position and even set in motion plans to mobilise the defeated Wehrmacht once again against the Soviet Union.

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