Working hours must be cut: Tube drivers are 100% right to strike! & Scapegoating: what goes around, comes around

London Underground drivers in the RMT are on strike against Transport for London's attempt to get them to "condense" their current working hours, spread over 5 days, into 4 days. A longer working day for drivers will allow TfL to run trains, including the 24-hour Friday/Saturday service, without taking on more drivers.

    TfL says these shifts would be "voluntary". But that's deliberate deception. They know it would be nigh- impossible to organise the job on this basis. However, they reckon their change will become a "fait accompli", given time. After all, the leaders of ASLEF (the elitist, drivers-only union) have already agreed to it.

    It's a classic case of "divide and rule" promoted by the union leadership! For now, RMT drivers are standing their ground. They know that if you give a finger, you risk losing your arm. Whether they can convince ASLEF drivers (some are members of both unions) to join their struggle remains to be seen. Breaking the division is obviously the most effective way to win. However, that would be up to workers themselves to enforce.

    But what about all the rest of the Underground workers who have to cover long shifts? Is it "beyond the wit" of union leaders to find a way to involve everyone in a strike and stay within the law - since they're so keen never to break it?

    Of course 4-day-weeks and long shifts are already commonplace, including in the car industry: 12hoursX4 (including 12-hr night shifts) were "sold" to workers using the 4-day "weekend" carrot. But since when was that ever safe - or healthy? That union officials colluded with this is unforgivable.

    What's more, tube drivers would do well to remind TfL of the worst ever accident on the tube: on 28 February 1975, a Northern City Line train failed to stop at the end of the line at Moorgate, crashing full-speed into the dead-end concrete wall. The driver and 42 passengers were killed; 74 suffered serious injuries. The official inquiry found no fault with the train. It concluded that the accident was caused by the driver.

    This is why tube train drivers today are highly sensitive over their Ts&Cs and their responsibility to keep their passengers alive. And they are 100% right. At the end of the day driving 9 hours in the dark and at night - even with breaks, cannot be acceptable. Even 8 hours is too long. But of course, taking on the additional number of workers which would allow shifts to be cut to to 4-6 hours, would mean doubling the current workforce. And where, under this capitalist system - public or private - where money rules, would that ever happen? So, let this be a first big success against the turn of the working hours' screw! Up the London tube strikers!

The prime minister has thrown his most senior civil servant under a bus. "Sir" Keir blames "Sir" Ollie for not telling him the truth and causing him to appoint Mandelson to be US ambassador when, if he'd known then what he knows now, he wouldn't have...

    But do we care? Of course, the opposition parties clearly do - and in the run-up to the 7 May elections they smell blood and want to go in for the kill. But it's not up to them under this very polite political system. There'll be no formal jousting nor executions in the Commons. The Labour Cabinet and MPs have to "kill" Starmer - and they probably prefer to wait until after the 7 May elections before drawing their swords.

    At that point, Starmer himself will serve as a scapegoat for the government's dodgy policies, non- delivery of promises and cuts which have been implemented in the public sector - including in the NHS, even while it struggles in a state of near-collapse.

    It was already predicted that the Labour Party candidates were going to be slaughtered on 7 May. Maybe after this latest Mandelson debacle their rivals will do even better. But every worker knows that voting changes nothing, and that it's collective class action that's needed!

    Today it's the big picture outside of Westminster, Cardiff or Edinburgh, which counts more than anything. And so we watch as the government hopelessly struggles to deal with the increase in the cost of energy - and offers a tiny amount off our bills to try to show it is somehow in control.

    And we're told that the real problem isn't actually the Netanyahu-Trump war against Iran and the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, but the linkage of electricity prices to gas prices. So Reeves says she is going to break this link... But if she can do that now, why didn't she do it before?

    Energy prices here are among the highest in the world. That was already the case before this war, thanks to longstanding privatisation and profiteering. If the government took these utilities into public hands, hey presto, prices could be controlled. Will it? Of course not. "Labour" governments have always been stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea when it comes to attacking the rich. So they just turn bluer to cope with the contradiction.

    The working class could offer a "red" alternative, however, by taking over control. By striking on Tuesday and Thursday tube workers are offering a small demonstration of our potential to stop the works. It's that potential that we need to utilise!