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 MIDNIGHT on August 14 1967, the Marine Offences Act made broadcasting from a boat off the British mainland illegal.
That meant the end for most of the pirate radio stations that had broadcast, primarily off the Essex coast, since 1964, although Radio Caroline continued and was joined for a period by Radio North Sea which was run from the Netherlands.
Many of the DJs on the pirate ships went on to work for BBC Radio One, which was set up as the official alternative, including of course John Peel.

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