Everyone expects that Trump’s election on 5 November will end this war which is entering its 3rd year. Trump has already been on the phone to both sides, with “new buddy” Elon Musk on the line. So has Germany’s Chancellor Scholz. These are the number one and number two arms suppliers to Ukraine.

    Germany’s coalition government collapsed the same week Trump was elected. The cutting off of its gas supplies (Russia’s pipeline was blown up) sent its economy spiralling down. Scholz now faces a vote of confidence on 11 December and possibly an early election in February. The German economy remains in crisis. By negotiating an end to the war, Scholz could steal some of the rising German far-right’s nationalist thunder...

Sending the North Koreans into the bloodbath

Of course these cynical players behave as if they’re playing chess, no matter the hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainian and Russian bodies which are piling up. In early October, Putin launched his “autumn conscription campaign”, to last until 31 December, to recruit an extra 130 to 180,000 soldiers. In addition to Russian soldiers, 10,000 to 12,000 North Korean soldiers are already deployed in frontline areas.

    Western politicians have accused Putin and Kim Jong-un of crossing a red line. But this isn’t the first time red-lines have been crossed in this war! Tanks and fighter jets and even long-range missiles were supposed to be excluded from NATO’s military aid to Ukraine, until they weren’t excluded any more. And since August, the Ukrainian army has been inside the Russian region of Kursk, although they are now having to retreat under fire.

The “victory” plan will be rewritten

In the latest escalation, Putin’s regime has relied on North Korea and Iran for military supplies. But the total military aid from North Korea has been estimated at between £1.3bn to £4.2bn; small change, compared with the £139bn that the US has already provided to Ukraine (£84bn directly aids the Ukrainian government, the rest funds US activities associated with the war and a small portion supports other affected countries in the region).

    With the pulling up of the drawbridge by the new regime in the US and soon too, in Germany - Zelensky’s main sponsors - it is obvious that Ukraine’s “victory” plan will have to to be rewritten.

Nothing great about dying nor about nationhood

Zelensky talks about “Ukraine, the great nation”, that will “only end the war from a position of strength”. One can only hope that the people who live in Ukraine and who he sends to the killing fields of this proxy war don’t swallow this infantile and reactionary nationalism. There is nothing great about dying in imperialist wars: as the communist revolutionaries of 1914 said, “they tell you you are dying for your country but you are dying for the bankers and the capitalists”.

    Keir Starmer here in Britain may push out his chest and pretend that Britain will step in to compensate for cuts in military aid to Ukraine by the US or Germany. But the economy here is in an even worse state than the US. Britain has so far “committed” £12.8 billion: £7.8 billion in military support and £5 billion in non- military support. Starmer would find it hard to justify adding more - and he will not. ❐

The war against Lebanon and Gaza is escalating, just as political leaders - “negotiators” - talk of “new” ceasefire proposals. The Israeli government seems to want to raze to the ground as much of Gaza as possible before backing off. Even refugee tents are targeted. And no doubt at all: Netanyahu is reinforced by the election of his good “come-back” friend Trump in the US.

    His army allows less and less humanitarian aid into the territory. Having banned the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees - UNRWA - from operating throughout occupied Palestine he is removing the only organisation with the expertise and means to provide food and medical services to Gaza’s 1.9m population.

    As for the extension of the war to Lebanon, Israeli strikes have already destroyed 100,000 homes. It almost seems a useless exercise to talk about the ever-rising death toll. But so far across Lebanon 3,445 are dead and 14,599 injured.

    The southern suburbs of Beirut are now bombed daily. The Israeli army and Intelligence services are determined to eradicate Hezbollah; an organisation that yes, is everywhere, since it enjoys widespread support in the population. So just as in Gaza, nowhere is safe. Of course the actors in this horrific war will have to sign a peace deal. But in the meantime there is storm before the calm. ❐

The first budget delivered by Labour’s Chancellor, Rachel Reeves had been leaked by all the newspapers beforehand. But while most reputable economists (Institute of Fiscal Studies; Financial Times, etc...) had pointed out that tax rises would surely be necessary in order to fix the £22bn black hole she claimed to have found (“thanks to the Tories’ mess”), let alone to make a start on getting the NHS back on its feet, Reeves remained adamant that she’d stick to Labour’s manifesto commitment “not to raise taxes for working people”.

Reeves stuck to her word...

In fact she did keep to that commitment, to the letter! Despite all the media and Tory voices claiming she had been dishonest. She increased employers’ National Insurance Contributions by 1.2 percent - but not even back up to the level it had been in April, before the Tories cut them by 2%! And by the way, this cut was supported wholeheartedly by Labour at the time, ever-keen to take the Tories’ place as the “low tax party”.

    To lighten employers’ burden, the NHS and the rest of the public sector were exempt. Although so far, GPs, hospices and care homes are not - and this is causing much upset. She also lowered employers’ thresholds for paying these NICs, which makes the NIC rise much worse.

... and kept her hands off the bosses’ profits!

The bosses and their media chorus haven’t stopped weeping and wailing - including over the increase in the minimum wage by 6.7%. And they’re now expected to pay increased Capital Gains Taxes, Inheritance Taxes, and Non-Doms will have to pay tax on the profits made abroad - after 4 years of residence.

    But totally untouched is the income tax for high-earners and, more significantly, the tax on company profits - “corporation tax” which at 25% remains one of the lowest in Europe.

The other ways to skin a cat

Reeves introduced 70 different policy measures all in all. Many will indeed hit “working people”. But the real problem is that employers always pass on their own tax increases to their workers through wages and conditions cuts and job cuts - or to customers. And nobody has caught up yet with the rising cost of living. Adjusted for inflation (if only they were!), we’re told that average earnings by 2029 will only just have returned to the level they were in 2008! So, this means (another!) fall in living standards for the working class, equivalent to going back in time by 16 years!

The only alternative is a new system

We are told that this £40bn tax-take by Reeves is the largest increase as a proportion of GDP since World War II - or, as former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt put it, “in British history”. But with a lower GDP, obviously the £40bn will represent a larger slice of it. Today it’s becoming more and more obvious that the breakages in this system can’t be fixed. For “things to get better” an entirely new system is needed. That isn’t a “policy” option. It will require the combined force, action and preoccupation of the entire working class to build it. It’s called “socialism”. ❐

The Paddington-Ladbroke Grove train crash was one of the worst disasters in British railway history. On 5 October 1999 at 8.11am, a Thames train from London Paddington to Bedwyn collided with the high speed Great Western train from Cheltenham to Paddington, two miles outside Paddington Station. The combined speed of impact was 130mph (209km/h). The leading carriage of the diesel multiple unit was largely destroyed. The fuel it was carrying ignited, leading to fires on both trains. In all, 29 passengers and both the train drivers were killed and 417 were injured - some with horrific burns.

    At the memorial which was held for the families of those killed, the general secretary of train drivers’ union Aslef, Mick Whelan, said: “As an industry we will never forget … the Ladbroke Grove rail crash…. and we should never forget the lessons that we learned in what is, and what will always be, a safety-critical industry”. But these lessons were not learnt. And as leader of a train drivers’ union (and surely not spokesperson for the “industry”!), Whelan knows this very well.

What happened and why?

In fact the Thames train passed a red signal, which had been repeatedly complained about by drivers since it was placed too high and obscured by nearby poles, masts and cables; it had been passed at danger eight times in six years.

    There was a warning system fitted to the trains, but this was old technology, introduced in the 1950s. It was supposed to alert drivers if they passed a signal at yellow or red, by sounding a klaxon, once, twice, or three times, which had to be cancelled by the driver in order to prevent the brakes being applied automatically. It is not hard to imagine how useless such a system was along a stretch of track such as Ladbroke Junction, where trains were passing multiple signals in a matter of minutes.

    What’s more there had been other devastating crashes before this one, all caused by the inadequacy of train protection systems: the 1996 Watford crash (1 dead, 69 injured), the 1997 Southall crash (7 dead 193 injured), the 1999 Spa Road Junction and the 1999 Winsford crash.

The lessons not learnt

In the days and weeks following, the extent of the criminal decade-long cost- cutting of the private train operating companies and Railtrack at the expense of safety became evident. (Railtrack, the track and signal company was taken back by the state as Network Rail in 2002)

    This crash may not have happened if an active safety system, such as Automatic Train Protection (ATP), which prevents any train from passing through a red signal, by enforced braking, had been fitted on the Thames turbo. This was the conclusion of the enquiry led by Lord Cullen (and others). He advised that all trains should be fitted with the most modern (at the time) European Train Protection Warning System. But this wasn’t done on grounds of cost: £27 million (in today’s value) for every life saved - wasn’t considered “value for money”!

What they did

By 2003, the cheaper Train Protection Warning System (TPWS) which introduced “speed controls” was fitted only at key junctions, BUT it is only effective if trains are travelling at under 70mph. Never mind that most intercity trains reach 125mph...

    Last year, according to the Office of Rail and Road, there were 287 signals passed at danger. That’s compared with 593 in 1999/2000. This is portrayed as “success” when this number and hence the probability of a crash happening could have been close to zero if state-of-the-art Automatic Train Protection had been fitted.

    Today automated digital systems like the European Train Control System (ETCS) eliminate signals altogether and give drivers constant feedback thanks to computerised “intelligent boxes” installed on the track. So far only the Chiltern line has piloted this and it will only be operative by 2035! Meanwhile LNER trains to Edinburgh or GWR trains to the north west and south west are relying on drivers’ and signallers’ vigilance because the current Automatic Train Protection still can’t protect them at their usual speeds. ❐

On September 6, the UN called for a ‘peacekeeping’ intervention in Sudan’s civil war - a brutal conflict which began in April 2023 between two rival army factions, the Sudanese Army Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), contending for power. Now the UN has discovered evidence of “crimes against humanity”. Satellite images revealed an estimated 150,000 bodies piling in the streets of the capital Khartoum, trucks getting rid of bodies in the river Nile and fires ravaging harvests meant to feed 18m people. This, as 10m people have been displaced and 5m are already starving.

    An article in The Economist entitled “Why the catastrophic war in Sudan is the world’s problem” highlighted what the British ruling class is really worried about: Red Sea trade - 17% of which is British trade, worth £129b/year and the fact that all South Sudan’s oil passes through Port Sudan in the North. Then there’s the ever-worsening refugee crisis: “60% of refugees in Calais are already Sudanese”… As of 14 November 2024, at least 61,000 people had been killed in Khartoum State alone. Over 7.7 million have been internally displaced and more than 2.1 million others have fled the country as refugees. The Economist did not, however argue that “the world” (read world imperialism) may have helped cause the problem.

British colonial cause and effect

Several countries are intervening in the war to stake their claims, ending up on different sides in the conflict. The UAE supports the RSF and Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran support the SAF - which is largely the old state army. In recent months Ukraine, armed by America and the EU, is apparently supporting the SAF, to counter Russian influence exercised through the Africa Corps, the new face of the Wagner Group, which supports the RSF! Anglo-American imperialism is probably arming both sides, to be sure to benefit when the war comes to an end.

    If the UN is suddenly making an issue out of ongoing mass slaughter, it is probably only due to the stoppage of crude oil deliveries to Port Sudan (worth £7.1m/day) by the Sudanese Petroleum Ministry, due to an RSF attack on the Petrodar pipeline this summer. The South Sudanese government also recently blocked the sale of Malaysian company Petronas to British Savannah energy, taking over its assets instead in a quasi-nationalisation; which doesn’t go down well with G7 politicians and the capitalists behind them.

No possible side

The RSF which is largely based on “irregulars” and rebel forces, has been the only side to turn up to the “peace” talks in Geneva - when it is actually the main target of genocide accusations. In fact, after its major role in the 2003 Darfur genocide, it followed this up by intervening in Yemen against the Houthis in 2014 - sending 6,000 soldiers on behalf of the US/Saudi Arabia. It also intervened in Libya’s civil war.

    The SAF’s record is scarcely better: it upheld the Sudanese dictatorship until Omar al-Bashir was overthrown by a popular movement in 2019, seizing power from the civilians who tried to form a government. By 2021 it had temporarily allied with RSF leaders to stage a coup. Now the two forces are fighitng each other for top-dog position. And the powers of the region and beyond want to ensure they’re on the side of the victor - and never mind the catastrophe bequeathed upon the population.

    The Sudanese working class movement was one of the most powerful in the region - it even had one of the largest communist parties. It is the only force which could turn this situation around by fighting for all workers against all those who act to preserve the interests of the local and regional wealthy players and behind them, the imperialist thieves. ❐

Haiti’s powerful armed gangs hold political power. Their violence has forced more than 700,000 people from their homes and killed over 4,000 this year alone.

    The interim Conille government has been fired and a new prime minster has just been sworn in: Alix Didier Fils-Aime, who owns a dry-cleaning business, sits on the board of a bank and will now have to take over the utterly corrupt political mess which is presided over by the so-called presidential council. Critics say “he has no political experience” but that will hardly be a problem, since he’s presiding over gang- warfare and corruption, not politics! He is the 7th PM since 2020.

    His predecessor, Conille had been trying to restore a semblance of law and order so that businesses could resume, but the UN- backed security force led by 400 Kenyan police officers which arrived last month has, very predictably, had little effect.

    Indeed, the gangs operate with the complicity of the elite, politicians, and the police. They are an integral part of state operations. And today, they are better armed, better organised, more experienced.

    But they’re still only a tiny minority compared to the vast number of working class and poor people who oppose them. When people have organised to take action against them, they’ve managed to fight back and force the gangsters to flee. Regardless of the current anti-gang rhetoric of the police and government, they know very well that it is naive to trust them.

    In the end, effective resistance against the gangs will involve workers and poor developing and implementing a general plan, going beyond rooting out petty gangsters; they will need to root out the system of brutal capitalist exploitation run by the crooks at home and in the US - which is killing them just as surely, through the violence of poverty. ❐