Slimmed down or not, this capitalist king and the system he upholds, has to go!  It's little wonder that artificial intelligence threatens to outdo human intelligence “very soon".  Especially when everything in this society points to a radical lack of intelligence on the part of those who own and control everything at the expense of the rest of us!

    Not one minister in charge of a public sector department, be it the NHS, education, the railways or the civil service has shown the slightest understanding of the urgent task at hand.  Which is for them to pay striking workers a wage they can live on, to take their hands off jobs and conditions and to invest in these vital services!  Instead, they thought that going to court to stop 1 day of a 2-day nurses’ strike was an "intelligent" thing to do!

    And they keep coming out with the same old lie: that pay rises equal to inflation (or above it, allowing catch up after 15 years of falling living standards) - ”will make inflation worse”.

    So the higher and higher rents paid to landlords don't fuel inflation?  Or the government payments for energy to allow supply companies get the full benefit of their super-inflationary 200% price rises, isn't inflationary?  And what about interest rate rises which are "sold" as a tool to control inflation, but now mean banks are making record profits?  Are these not inflationary?  Apparently paying the rich more, while starving the poor is fine, but paying the poor more, by taking from the rich, isn't!

    Of course, the truth of the matter is that the capitalist system, which is designed to fulfil the bosses’ need for ever-rising profits - and rising prices - at the expense of the working class, cannot be anything other than “inflationary”!

    Never mind, though, "intelligent" humans, in business suits and Tory and Labour red and blue neck-ties, have no intention of tackling even the tip of this inflationary iceberg - let alone the rest of it.  They could impose price controls on food.  Or on energy.  Or impose rent controls.  But no.  Both sides of the Commons madhouse claim that the answer to the housing crisis is to "build more homes" - homes for sale, not for rent at social rates...

    And then they expect the electorate to vote for them? The best choice this Thursday will be "none of the above"!  Because it's not voting which will change anything, whether this week, or next year.  Only workers’ struggles will do it. And most voters know that. Abstention is already the largest "party".  Unlike Westminster’s “Chatbots”, voters are actually "intelligent"!

    Another optimistic sign is that 70% of youth polled have no interest whatsoever in the £100 million-coronation circus planned for this Saturday!  Yes, and who wouldn't agree that any system which places this crown of Empire, heavy with the blood of the repressed, on the head of an accident of birth, making him titular head of state, belongs in the dustbin of history?

The evacuation of British citizens out of civil-war-torn Sudan has been criticised as too late, too slow and too selective.  But the government refuses any analogy with what happened in Afghanistan, even though there are a lot of similarities.  The lack of preparedness, for instance. Or the choice to get diplomats out while leaving everyone else in the danger-zone, with instructions to contact an empty consulate for advice.

    And when the Foreign Office declared the operation ”complete” only 1,888 "qualifying Brits” had actually been airlifted out, leaving 6,000 behind...

    Of course there are differences with the botched Afghan airlift, linked both to recent history and the more distant past.  Sudan was a British colony, “granted"(!) independence in 1953, whereas the occupation of Afghanistan in 2001 followed a joint invasion with the US as a supposedly retaliatory act.

    Today Sudan has slipped back into the state of civil war and military dictatorship which its unarmed population tried to end for good in 2018, when it took to the streets.  At the time, their numbers overwhelmed the repressive lslamist regime of Omar Bashir.  But in the end, as the situation today shows, this wasn't enough, nor did they have the necessary organisation within their ranks to prevent the military from returning to power.  And of course the rival military factions have rival backers: the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, offering plenty of weapons.

    What was striking about the evacuations was the separate and unco-ordinated action of the different states involved.  How do British ministers explain, for instance, that the French evacuation of Khartoum was more efficient, even though it was a boots-on-the-ground operation, in the absence of a proper cease-fire?  And why couldn't all countries have joined forces to help more of those in need?  ls that something to do with a broken "Union"?

    What ministers will not want to explain however, is why they are not accepting Sudanese refugees into this country, on the same and equal basis as the refugees they accept from Ukraine.