ANDREW MURRAY wonders what the great communist foe of Oswald Mosley would make of today’s far-right surge, warning that while the triumph of Farage and ‘Robinson’ is far from inevitable, placing any faith in Starmer in an anti-fascist front is a fool’s errand

IF IT feels like peace has become ever more elusive in our troubled world, that instinct is sadly borne out by the statistics. According to the institutions that research this, there are as many as 110 active armed conflicts in the world right now.
While we are familiar with the most high-profile ones — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s attack on Gaza, Lebanon and now Syria — some of the worst violence is happening in Africa.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, six million are already dead. South Sudan is in turmoil. But these conflicts rarely make the headlines and there seem to be few meaningful diplomatic efforts underway to secure an end to the violence. Racism and colonialism, two of the perpetual impediments to peace, are alive and well.

But the beneath the racism and misogyny of the far right lies a shared grievance with the left — Starmer’s complete betrayal of working people, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

Still the only black man to win the US Open tennis title, a statue of the legendary champion, Arthur Ashe, is now the only one remaining on Monument Avenue in his Richmond, Virginia hometown, where confederate leaders of the Civil War were also once displayed, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

Danni Perry’s flag display at the Royal Opera House sparked 182 performers to sign a solidarity letter that cancelled the Tel Aviv Tosca production, while Leonardo DiCaprio invests in Tel Aviv hotels, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

For 80 years, survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings have pleaded “never again,” for anyone. But are we listening, asks Linda Pentz Gunter