Mask-off outbursts by Maga insiders and most strikingly, the destruction and reconstruction of the presidential seat, with a huge new $300m ballroom, means Trump isn’t planning to leave the White House when his term ends, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
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Subsidy bonanza: the great train robbery continues
‘Our’ train companies — mostly partly owned from abroad — are trousering millions of taxpayer cash, as usual, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
BEN CHACKO speaks with Knesset member OFER CASSIF about rising political violence, the prospects for peace and his continuous ‘silencing by suspension’
The City is leaning on Rachel Reeves to cut welfare spending — when what’s needed is cuts to all the benefits given to the mega rich, corporations and banks to help them not pay or blatantly dodge their fair share of tax, explains BERNIE EVANS
The choice between two Blairites to revamp the tepid centrism of our ruling party doesn’t even come as cold comfort as we wander the city streets suffering from their third decade of austerity and the fifth of wage stagnation, writes MATT KERR
ANN HENDERSON looks at the trailblazers of the Women’s Trade Union League and their successful fight for female factory inspectors — a battle that echoes in today’s workplace campaigns
HENRY FOWLER puts the strike of public-sector workers in New Zealand in the wider context of deteriorating employment conditions throughout the world’s major economies
MAT COWARD looks back at a protest 105 years ago this month, whose reporting by the media bears uncomfortable similarities with demos today
THE latest accounts from the three train firms running the South Western Trains, Avanti West Coast, Thameslink, Great Northern, Southern and Gatwick Express rail franchises show these companies paid their owners a combined £69.5 million of dividends in 2022-23, despite depending on hundreds of millions in government subsidy.
The subsidy that kept these firms going was both much bigger than their profits and their dividends, so really they paid out this money to their shareholders directly from government aid.
When Covid slashed passenger numbers in 2020, the government tore up all the existing rail contracts and moved to huge subsidies to keep rail moving: the rail companies kept their privately run, publicly granted transport monopolies, but the Department for Transport pumped in extra cash to keep the trains running.
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But unions warn renationalisation must not be fudged
Our groundbreaking report reveals how private rail companies are bleeding millions from public coffers through exploitative leasing practices — but we have the solutions, writes Aslef Scottish organiser KEVIN LINDSAY
