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

THE coronavirus pandemic has been exceptionally difficult for everyone living in Britain, and nowhere more so than the city of Leicester, which has borne the brunt of the government’s incompetence.
Leicester has been under the harshest lockdown or enhanced restrictions longer than any other area in the UK — the city had more Covid-19 deaths than any other part of England and Wales in July 2020.
According to the most up-to-date ONS statistics, my constituency of Leicester East has, tragically, suffered 155 deaths, although the actual figure is likely to be considerably higher as the ONS has only published data up to December 2020.

CLAUDIA WEBBE argues that Labour gains nothing from its adoption of right-wing stances on immigration, and seems instead to be deliberately paving the way for the far right to become an established force in British politics, as it has already in Europe

The Met Police arrested a staggering 890 people, many elderly, disabled, and even blind in a single demonstration — all to back up the government’s unhinged campaign against non-violent civil disobedience at the behest of Israel, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE

CLAUDIA WEBBE says a UN agency’s finding that Gaza’s famine, killing up to 400 people a day, is entirely man-made must prompt a renewed revolt against our government’s complicity in this horror

Starmer’s decision to suspend Diane Abbott yet again demonstrates a determination to maintain and propagate a hierarchy of racism, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE