Following a fratricidal period for the left with Morales and Arce at loggerheads, right-wing, anti-MAS candidates obtained over 85 per cent of the votes cast in the latest general election, writes FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ

2025 may be the 200th anniversary of the railway, but train drivers’ union leader Mick Whelan isn’t celebrating.
“We’re not part of the Railway 200 celebrations,” he observes. The reason? A rail sector degraded by 30 years of privatisation, chronic underinvestment and a lack of long-term planning, meaning Britain’s network lags most European countries’ in speed and reliability, while costing passengers more.
“We go from parliament to parliament. In any other reality, having spent as much as we did on HS2, you wouldn’t stop, especially when it costs half what it would to finish just to put it into mothballs.

Morning Star editor Ben Chacko speaks to JON FARLEY – the retired headteacher whose arrest in Leeds exposes the grim absurdity of the Palestine Action ban