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 beginning of the end of World War One
JOHN ELLISON remembers the momentous February of 1918 and the dramatic issues on the political agenda of the day
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk – officers from the staff of Field Marshall von Hindenburg meet the delegation of Soviet Russia, Lev Kamenev (centre)
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
As February 1918 opened its doors, the heart-warming effect of the case for peace and socialism advanced by the Bolshevik revolution and delivered in person by ambassador Maxim Litvinov — to rapturous applause at late January’s Nottingham Labour conference — was much felt in labour movement circles.
The Herald declared, moreover, that the conference had killed “jingoism” and that “no-one talked of crushing Germany,” but the war went on.
“Post rushing, trench raiding and patrol conflicts remain the limited items of infantry activity these times,” declared the Liberal Daily News on February 6, but deaths, wounds and other usual front-line sufferings were plentiful and there was a justified general expectation that a major German offensive was coming soon.
More from this author
The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON
JOHN ELLISON looks back at Labour’s opportunistic tendency, when in office, to veer to the right on policy as well as ideological worldview
JOHN ELLISON recalls the momentous role of the French resistance during WWII
JOHN ELLISON looks back to the 1974 general election in Greece which freed the people from the oppressive military junta
