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

THERE was rightly a furore after Tory MPs (for the most part) voted not to carry through the suspension of Tory MP Owen Paterson from Parliament (Paterson himself voted against his suspension) for breaching lobbying rules — a decision which Keir Starmer correctly labelled “corruption.”
MPs have expected standards of behaviour and an independent committee found that Paterson had broken them.
Johnson’s response was not to back the committee but to have a look and see if rules could be changed to allow corrupt dealings.

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