There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
New Year’s Honours – who said ‘No, thanks’?
MAT COWARD offers a roll call of refuseniks – some for political reasons, others for quirky reasons of their own
Labour MP Philip Noel-Baker had a Nobel Prize and an Olympic medal – but declined to be made a Companion of Honour
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
JB PRIESTLEY, socialist writer and broadcaster, turned down a life peerage in 1965 and a Companion of Honour in 1969. Almost as if to underline his point, in 1979 he accepted the title of Pipe Smoker of the Year.
Some acts of rebellion are very small, but that doesn’t mean they don’t count. When they read out the New Year Honours List on the news you might enjoy playing this seasonal game: try and guess who said “No, thanks.”
Labour MP and peace campaigner Philip Noel-Baker must have had a pretty big mantelpiece on which to keep his Nobel prize, his Olympic medal and the decorations for bravery he won from France, Britain and Italy as an ambulance driver in the first world war. Maybe he turned down a Companion of Honour in 1965 because it seemed a trivial trinket alongside his other trophies, though some suggest that he was motivated by opposition to the war against Vietnam.
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