Both Conservative and Labour administrations have now refused to release research showing PIP payments are vital for disabled people’s survival, exposing the ideological nature of planned welfare ‘reforms,’ writes Dr DYLAN MURPHY
Labour’s rail plan leaves private profiteers still riding the gravy train
SOLOMON HUGHES explains how rolling stock companies like Angel Trains will continue milking taxpayers for billions even after renationalisation, as Canadian pension funds and Texan oil billionaires cash in on our daily commutes
Western media dismisses the National People’s Congress while ignoring its extensive consultation processes, massive public participation mechanisms, and a tiered structure involving millions of deputies, explains JENNY CLEGG
Despite caring for vulnerable children and often covering classes, support staff remain undervalued, with some earning less than supermarket workers — but GMB’s campaigning offers new hope, argues DONNA SPICER
NICK WRIGHT examines how Farage’s party has attracted five distinct voter tribes with incompatible views on economics, immigration and state intervention — presenting both a challenge and opportunity for left organising
Man-made canals like Panama and Suez face unprecedented challenges from extreme weather patterns and geopolitical tensions that reveal the fragility of our global trade networks, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
As climate change makes vast mineral deposits accessible, the island’s 56,000 residents face unprecedented pressure from Trump’s territorial ambitions while struggling to maintain their traditional way of life, writes JOHN GREEN
Student Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest and threatened deportation are terrifying — but the moribund Democrats are still failing to mount any meaningful resistance against the slide toward autocracy, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
LABOUR’S case for renationalising the railways is strong. But even after this renationalisation, all the actual trains themselves will still be privately owned. Recently published accounts for Angel Trains — one of the three companies that own our trains — show why this is a problem.
Labour’s renationalisation case is this: since Covid, passenger numbers collapsed and are only now beginning to recover. Without passengers, the train firms would have gone bust, so the Department for Transport gave the train operating companies — the firms that you buy a ticket from and run the trains, like Northern, Southern, Thameslink, or Crosscountry — new contracts.
Private train operators still run the railways, but the government collects all train fares, paying rail operators with a mix of those fares and taxpayer subsidies to make up the shortfall. That subsidy is huge, around £30 billion since 2019.
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Despite using female spokespeople for its campaigns against clinic buffer zones, ADF UK’s board consists entirely of men, with 80 per cent living outside Britain and most funding from its US parent, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
You’ll never guess why a quick peace in Ukraine might be in the ambassador to Washington’s interests, writes SOLOMON HUGHES. Actually, of course you will – he stands to make a lot of money from his business links to Russia
SOLOMON HUGHES probes the finances of a phoney ‘charity’ pushing the free schools and academies agenda
What’s behind the sudden wave of centrist ‘understanding’ about the real nature of Starmerism and its deep unpopularity? SOLOMON HUGHES reckons he knows the reasons for this apparent epiphany
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As train drivers prepare for their next round of strike action, Aslef general secretary MICK WHELAN talks to Morning Star reporter Peter Lazenby about the ever-increasing profits of rail privateers and the Tories’ politically motivated intransigence
One thing about an incoming Labour government looks great: taking the railways into public ownership. But we won’t actually own the trains, warns SOLOMON HUGHES