With the death of Pope Francis, the world loses not only a church leader but also a moral compass

“Tractors to the left of us, Tractors to the right.
Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.”
This isn’t how Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade poem opens up, but residents of across Europe’s capital cities could be forgiven for thinking it should have done.
In Brussels, people had to run the gauntlet of tractors lining both sides of streets around the European Parliament; all part of farmer protests against cuts in fuel subsidies, land set-aside obligations and low-cost food imports.
The protests kicked off everywhere. Germany, France, Romania, Portugal, Greece, Poland, Britain and the Netherlands, all witnessed demonstrations about farming in crisis.
ALAN SIMPSON warns of a dystopian crossroads where Trump’s wrecking ball meets AI-driven alienation, and argues only a Green New Deal can repair our fractured society before techno-feudalism consumes us all


