While bombs were being dropped by Israeli planes on Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp, ostensibly to "destroy" the "terrorist Hamas", Charles and Camilla were enjoying their royal visit to Kenya. Or maybe not, since Charles was obliged to acknowledge "the wrongdoings of the past" as "a cause of the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret". What he is referring to, of course, are the atrocities committed by his mother's regime against the Kenyan freedom struggle by the Mau Mau, in the years 1952-1960.

    Then again, these wrong-doings are hardly all over: much of Kenya's prime land and agri-business remains in British hands. But up until very recently, the record of these British atrocities was covered up. The first independence president, Kenyatta, inaugurated by the British in 1963, helped sweep this - and Kenyans' history of courageous anti-colonial struggle - under the carpet, claiming that "Mau Mau was a disease which was eradicated and must never be remembered again".

    However, Kenyans who know this history, including the oldest man in the world, 117-year old former Mau Mau "terrorist" Samwel Nthigai Mburia, are well able to draw a parallel with the bombing by 10 British RAF Harvard bombers and 4 heavy Lincolns, of Mau Mau fighters hiding deep in Kenya's forests in 1955 - and the Israeli bombing of Gaza "to eradicate Hamas".

    The Mau Mau, when caught by the British authorities were hanged, tortured, castrated, suspended upside down and beaten to death. When their Uhuru struggle finally ended, up to 320,000 were sent to concentration camps with their families, where they were subjected to forced labour, starvation, further torture, rape and murder. British authorities also herded Kikuyu women and children into 800 heavily-patrolled, enclosed villages, dispersed across the countryside and cordoned off by barbed wire, spiked trenches and watchtowers.

    Does that sound familiar? It will to the Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza, "heavily patrolled" on the West Bank and the 6,000 (including juveniles) in Israeli jails whose repression is overseen and backed by the US and British modern colonial - aka, imperialist - states.

    Netanyahu uses the same language as Kenyatta - who learnt his words from the British authorities: terrorists must be eradicated like vermin. This week, in Kenya, Charles presented former "vermin" Samwel Nthigai Mburia with a medal to replace the one he was "awarded" after fighting for Britain in WW2 - which he, like other veterans, had thrown away in disgust...

    Today the "wrongdoings" of imperialism and its proxy, the Netanyahu government of Israel, continue. And "King" Charles, as Sunak's and Starmer's rather rickety and tarnished figurehead, doesn't dare to apologise for any of it.

The railway strikes against the proposed cutting of jobs and conditions by 14 train operators - and for a pay rise which covers the cost of living - have been dragging on for 16 months, since the summer of 2022. But there is still no victory...

    So when Harper backed down on Tuesday and said that the ticket office closures wouldn't go ahead, the RMT union tweeted happily that "this was a massive victory for all passengers, community groups and rail workers!" adding "It's a direct result of months of campaigning and the biggest public consultation ever!".

    This is true. Transport Secretary Harper suddenly discovered that the train companies' closure "proposals do not meet the high thresholds set by Ministers and so the Government ... asked train operators to withdraw [them]"... Which only exposes the fact that before the campaign took off, he was ready to go ahead without worrying about any kind of ministerial "threshold"!

    The government wants to spend less money on the railway. Now that most franchises are management contracts, it has re-centralised the overall control of the railway in its hands, keeping some of the arrangements brought in during Covid. But this also implies that huge government subsidies will have to increase (a large part handed over to private operators!). However, looking ahead to elections, Harper says that he wants to reduce the cost of the railway to taxpayers. Labour's shadow Transport Minister echoes him exactly. And the main cost is, of course, the cost of the workforce...

    This is no doubt why the Rail Delivery Group (which represents the 14 rail companies still in dispute with the rail unions), refuses to back down on its attacks on workers' conditions. And refuses to give workers a decent pay rise - which is now 4 years overdue!

    Moreover, while cutting the workforce, they are all lying about passenger numbers, claiming these will continue to fall - when quite the opposite is true. And by the way, nobody mentions that "green agenda" anymore, to move from road to rail!

    For railway workers (and by that we mean drivers and all others, in Aslef and the RMT), there is no option except to renew their strike action. But the dispute will continue to "drag on" unless they organise real strikes and this time they do it together: all out until they win.