WE ARE two weeks into 2026, and less than a fortnight from the resetting of the Doomsday Clock a year after it was set at 89 seconds to midnight — the closest in its 78-year existence. How close will it be as Trump continues to attack the oil-producing nations that have turned their face to China and their backs on the petro-chemical dollar, threatening the foundations of the house of cards on which the US economy is built? Prevention of nuclear war is now dependent on Chinese and Russian restraint in the face of the most outrageous provocations.

Meanwhile, in Britain, our hapless Prime Minister simultaneously channels the ghosts of Neville Chamberlain, Edward Teach and Emperor Nero. Active appeasement of the fascist administration running “our closest ally” — including allowing US nukes to once again be stationed on British soil, aiding its piracy on the high seas and hoarding Venezuelan gold on its behalf.

All this while the British state collapses and the post-war cradle to grave contract with its citizens enters its death throes, with the utilities, transport, housing, health and social care, education, local services and community policing on their knees.

Norwich MP Clive Lewis is correct in his assessment that privatisation has destroyed the infrastructure of the water industry. The same applies to energy as a creaking national grid resulted in £2.3 billion compensation paid last year to the private energy companies and an estimated £1.5bn “wasted wind” because of the need to turn off turbines due to lack of grid capacity. 

Britain’s roads crumble while inadequate investment for railway infrastructure, subsidised public transport and connectivity prevents the modal shift of freight from road to rail and commuting from private cars to buses, trains and metro, necessary to meet net zero targets.

The continued dependence on the private sector to fix Britain’s broken services dooms the government’s plans to failure when meeting the needs of the population will always take second place to profit.  

How can the government justify condemning hundreds of homes to fall into the sea on the Norfolk and Suffolk coast instead of investing in the robust sea defences it maintains (correctly) are essential for critical infrastructure such as Sizewell? Shockingly, the people affected by this dereliction, who are unable to insure their homes, will receive no home-loss compensation from a government that has abandoned them.

Over 240,000 construction workers are needed to meet housing targets and 230,000 for the green and digital transition over the next three years. 

So where are the apprenticeships and workforce planning to plug the skills shortage and provide gainful employment for most of the 735,000 16–25-year-olds who are currently Neet?

The destruction of NHS dentistry and social care are bellwethers for an imperilled “free at the point of use” commitment increasingly dependent on private provision, while Starmer’s capitulation to Trump leaves us in hock to Big Pharma.  

Where is the plan to rescue universities and local government from bankruptcy?

As the police are increasingly used as agents of state repression against its citizens, working-class communities have no protection against poverty-driven anti-social behaviour and organised crime.

The pitiful pantomime of today’s PMQs saw Badenoch dial up to 11 her increasingly confident impersonation of Nurse Ratched as Starmer failed miserably to counter her description of a government in the grip of a self-inflicted omnishambles.

The country can’t wait for a predicted Labour wipeout in May or a Burnham return to Westminster.  

The sooner the PLP grows a spine and tips this useless government out of office the better, along with its slavish devotion to the failed and deadly neoliberalism of the last 45 years. We need and deserve a planned, peaceful socialist economy and a government committed to running the country in the interests of the many, not the few.