Right now, it's obviously very useful to talk about the threat from Russia and "Putin's dictatorship", as Labour ministers, but also the politicians of all the other parties do. Yes, rather than what's actually threatening us - that is, the ever-growing cost of living, the lack of jobs, the low wages, the high energy bills, exorbitant rents and the cuts looming everywhere. Not to mention the collapse of the National Health Service, the crazy expense of public transport and the cost of petrol and diesel at the pump...

    In fact to reverse the current crisis - which is rooted deep in the capitalist system, we would probably need a full-scale revolution!

    However, there are measures which could be taken by the government, which could help. The profit motive could, for instance, be removed from the utilities, starting with energy... Which would of course mean a full re-nationalisation - with utility workers and energy experts placed in charge...

    And hasn't Burnham said that he'd like to reverse the damage begun in the 1980s under Tory PM Margaret Thatcher, who privatised Jaguar Cars, British Steel, British Aerospace, British Airways, telecommunications, water, gas, electricity, council housing... It was said that she'd have privatised the air we breathed if she could have! But so far the reversal record of the Labour government is not so good, to say the least...

    The "renationalisation" already begun on the railways hardly deserves that name. The "public" GBR will continue to lease trains and carriages from private Rolling Stock Leasing Companies, the (bad) excuse being that buying them out would be prohibitively expensive "for the taxpayer". But wasn't it taxpayers' money which established them in the first place? In the meantime the ROSCOs merrily coin it in... from us!

    Rail Freight remains private too, as do Open-Access Passenger trains like Lumo, Grand Central and Hull Trains. And heavy maintenance, construction, cleaning {with workers on the minimum wage!), tech innovations and engineering projects remain outsourced to the private sector. As for fares - among the highest in the world - these have not come down!

    And what say do railway workers have over any of this? None! The exact same empty-headed bosses, bureaucrats and clueless ministers remain in charge! When it's obvious that those who do the work and run the service day to day, should be in control of it! It seems that revolution is definitely in order...