As Colombia approaches presidential elections next year, the US decision to decertify the country in the war on drugs plays into the hands of its allies on the political right, writes NICK MacWILLIAM

DECEMBER is rarely a time for big protests. The weather is poor and the pressures of a commercial festival are considerable, even more so in another year with Covid concerns.
Yet traditionally Christmas and new year have been times of revolt. When most worked on the land there was little that could be done in the few hours of daylight at this time of year. There was however plenty of time for festivities and revolt.
It was a time of the election of lords of misrule (these were mainly men although in France women also took the role).

In 1981, towering figure for the British left Tony Benn came a whisker away from victory, laying the way for a wave of left-wing Labour Party members, MPs and activism — all traces of which are now almost entirely purged by Starmer, writes KEITH FLETT

Who you ask and how you ask matter, as does why you are asking — the history of opinion polls shows they are as much about creating opinions as they are about recording them, writes socialist historian KEITH FLETT

KEITH FLETT revisits debates about the name and structure of proposed working-class parties in the past

The summer saw the co-founders of modern communism travelling from Ramsgate to Neuenahr to Scotland in search of good weather, good health and good newspapers in the reading rooms, writes KEITH FLETT