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

AT Labour conference Jeremy Corbyn will, no doubt, be addressing a number of large crowds. It seems unlikely that any will be hostile but if they were I wouldn’t expect the Labour leader to be bothered.
In over 40 plus years of political campaigning he will have faced on occasion less than favourable audiences and no doubt learnt from the experience.
Then we come to Boris Johnson. Old Etonian and Bullingdon Club member, a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and someone firmly in the political bubble. He may well hear critical views but not those expressed by the hoi polloi outside Westminster.

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