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The truth behind Labour’s plans to ‘renationalise’ rail
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
ROGER McKENZIE explains how Ibrahim Traore has sparked the flames of hope across Africa, while the Western powers seek to extinguish all attempts to build true sovereignty in the long-exploited continent
DANIEL GOVER considers the procedural complexities awaiting a Private Member’s Bill in its passage through Commons and Lords
JAMIE TUCKNUTT reports on an initiative that brings together two epochs of the city’s anti-fascist struggles
Just as German Social Democrats joined the Nazis in singing Deutschland Uber Alles, ANDREW MURRAY observes how Starmer tries to out-Farage Farage with anti-migrant policies — but evidence shows Reform voters come from Tories, not Labour, making this ploy morally bankrupt and politically pointless
KEITH FLETT traces how the ‘world’s most successful political party’ has imploded since Thatcher’s fall, from nine leaders in 30 years to losing all 16 English councils, with Reform UK symbolically capturing Peel’s birthplace, Tamworth — but the beast is not dead yet
With turnout plummeting and faith in Parliament collapsing, BERT SCHOUWENBURG explains how radical local government reform — including devolved taxation and removal of party politics from town halls — could restore power to communities currently ignored by profit-obsessed MPs
LABOUR’S plans to renationalise the rail firms by taking over the train operating companies (TOCs) as their contracts come to an end is a big deal.
These are privately run but very heavily publicly subsidised companies that want to pump cash out of the government and passengers and then pump it into their investors’ hands. They are so keen to get the cash that they are rubbish at running the railways. Renationalising them is a good idea.
But if you want to know how some rail privatisation will continue even after Labour’s plans — and how it will continue to squeeze private cash out of public services, it’s worth having a look at the annual accounts of Eversholt UK Rails Ltd, which were published to zero media interest at the end of last month.
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SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war
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