It’s the dramatic rise of China with its burgeoning economy that has put the Trump administration into a frenzy – with major implications both at home and abroad, argues MICHAEL BURKE
We need to run our own railway
Grant Shapps has admitted that 26 years of rail privatisation hasn’t delivered for passengers, staff or taxpayers. MICK WHELAN, general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers' union, argues that it’s time to bring our railway back into public ownership
DR DAVID GORDON SCOTT tells the story of the North Sands Massacre, Sunderland, as part of the ongoing work of remembrance of those killed by soldiers during the 1825 Seafarers Strike and the bicentennial commemorations on Sunday August 3
MATT KERR charts his bike-riding odyssey in aid of the Royal Marsden charity and CWU Humanitarian Aid
JOHN CALLOW tells of the rise, fall and rise again of a young martyr to the early French republic, Joseph Bara, whose short life was elevated by Robespierre and, later, others for its emotional and ideological appeal
April 9 1928 – July 26 2025
OLIVER SNELLING, a south London stonecarver and yeoman stonemason, relates how he is helping bring about a new festival next month
WE ARE waiting, with some trepidation, for the publication of the much-delayed Williams rail review and an indication from the Department for Transport of what it has in mind for the future of our railway.
There have been signals — Grant Shapps has been busy briefing his friends in the right-wing papers — of what he might have in mind.
Adrian Quine was prompted to write a piece in the Daily Telegraph asking, plaintively: “Are our trains to be nationalised in all but name?”
More from this author
As the labour movement meets to remember the Tolpuddle Martyrs, MICK WHELAN, general secretary of train drivers’ union Aslef, says it’s an appropriate moment to remind the Labour government to listen to the trade unions a little more
Aslef general secretary MICK WHELAN writes for the Morning Star on the eve of the TUC in Brighton, about the pay offer from the DfT, relations with the Labour government, and the union’s motion at Congress calling for the renationalisation of rail freight
MICK WHELAN, general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers’ trade union, writes for the Morning Star as union activists prepare to march through Durham today in a display of working-class solidarity at the 138th Durham Miners’ Gala
MICK WHELAN, general secretary of train drivers’ trade union Aslef, writes for the Morning Star as voters prepare to go to the polls in the general election today
