It should come as no surprise that the "US-British special relationship" has not so far, delivered the early US-British special trade deal which Rachel Reeves promised. She returned empty-handed after talks with US Treasury Secretary Bessent last Friday.

    Sadly, despite Trump's professed love for all things British (or was that Scottish?) it seems even that personal invitation from King Charles wasn't enough to win a place in Trump's "first phase" deal-queue.

    Little Britain may now be in the second or even third phase grouping... well behind the quasi US colony of South Korea, or Japan, or even the much larger and obviously more important EU...

    Although Trump, to quote his baby-talk, says the Europeans are "not very nice people" and pretends that he doesn't want to play with them.

    Anyway, it's all rather ironic, because the main reason for this is likely to be that very same Brexit (cheered on by Trump himself!) which removed Britain's only real attraction for US trading partners, that is, its former tariff-free(!) access to the EU...

    But when Washington nevertheless calls on the "special relationship" in order to carry out its pro-Israeli aggression in the Middle East against Yemen, the British air force is ready and waiting...

    So this Tuesday, British planes joined US air force bombers, for the first time since Trump took office, to carry out what Starmer describes as "a joint operation with US forces against a Houthi military target", threatening "freedom of navigation in the Red Sea". Of course Starmer is lying.

    He does not mention that US and British jets are acting in direct support of Netanyahu's bloody slaughter in Gaza - which by now is not only holding the population under total siege - all food, fuel and medical supplies have been prevented from entering the Strip for 60 days - but is subjecting ordinary civilian Palestinians to daily bombing, killing men, women and many children...

    Nor does the official British media explain that Yemen's Houthis are the only outside force prepared to pay the price for standing up for the Gazans against the Israeli military. In response to this latest attack, a Houthi spokesperson said that they would "persist in upholding their religious, moral and humanitarian duties towards the Palestinian people, and their military operations will not stop unless the aggression stops and the siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted".

    In fact this latest attack against Yemen was the 4th joint US-British operation this year. US/British drones, shells and bombs are killing dozens of Yemeni civilians daily (they also managed to kill a whole encampment of African migrant workers).

    So never mind the trade deal. The US-British special relationship - their partnership in bloody imperialist crime - is as deadly as ever.

On the eve of the local elections, all the so-called electoral "experts" are explaining to the rest of us how there's a huge and historic "sea-change" in voting behaviour. All because the single-issue-anti-immigrant Reform leads the opinion polls, supposedly "breaking" the "100-year-old two-party system". A sea-change indeed - in the tiny teacup of local elections!

    And why should anyone feel interested in these elections, anyway? Particularly when council budgets are set (and cut!) by central government. In fact, the turnout rarely makes it above one third, and when it does, it's usually an expression of anger at the government in power, rather than support for a particular party's policies.

    In fact even the turnout at the last general election on 4 July last year was just 59.7%. The skewed British voting system, meant the Labour Party managed to win two-thirds of the seats with just a third of the vote! Some "democracy", this!

    So, if Reform wins many council seats or mayoralties on Mayday, what will this actually prove? That "securing borders" and "faith, flag and family", or even overt racism against immigrants are vote winners?

    Hardly, given that this vote will only represent a tiny minority of the population anyway. In fact the far-right domination of the airwaves may not drive ordinary punters to vote, but what it has done is to drive all parties, without exception, to talk about "securing borders"... Even the left-leaning Greens say "oh we have to limit immigration" as if it's a cause of problems and not actually an effect of them!

    Yes, the "cause" being the declining capitalist system that can't provide a decent standard of living, even for the middle class, let alone the workers and poor - and even in the "rich" countries.

    It's high time, therefore, that the working class had a real party of its own - not to win votes within the system, but to fight against it, for a new society which bases itself on production for need, not profit, in a world without borders, ensuring that this planet's resources are available for everyone...