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

IT WAS 10 years ago on August 4, 2011 that police shot dead Mark Duggan in Tottenham Hale. A gun was not found on him and there is no evidence that he fired one at police.
Numerous inquiries and court proceedings have followed but as so often the matter remains unresolved – not least for the family, but also for the wider community.
Two days later a local protest march went to the police station in central Tottenham. Such protests remain common, with incidents of racist policing still an issue. Usually the police engage with protesters who peacefully disperse. On that Saturday evening, August 6 2011, the police did not engage but tried to push back the protest. It sparked a riot — and that riot sparked others across the country.

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