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

BORIS JOHNSON announced the end of most compulsory Covid restrictions in England on January 19.
On the same day it was announced there were 96,545 Covid infections in England and 301 reported deaths. The figures were a reduction but remain high.
In 2021 it was suggested in the other three UK nations that to lift restrictions entirely would mean infections had dropped below 50 people in 100,000.

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