lead imageThe union has stated that it will be meeting for further talks over the coming weeks. However, it remains to be seen whether
Underground bosses will listen to the drivers’ safety concerns ‚ both for themselves, and for passengers.
Politics
Israt Sawda: Why I’m standing to be a councillor for Mile End
Israt Sawda is the Conservative candidate for Mile End Ward in the Tower Hamlets Council elections in May
On 1st January 2010, I stepped off a plane at a British airport, alone, seventeen years old, and knowing nobody in this country. I had left Bangladesh against every expectation placed upon me. Where I grew up, a girl’s education had one stated purpose: to make her a more attractive prospect for marriage. I wanted more than that. I spent months working and persuading my parents — who loved me, but could not easily imagine sending their daughter alone to a country she had never visited — to let me go. When they finally said yes, it was one of the bravest things they ever did. The moment I landed, I breathed in the air and felt, for the first time, that I was somewhere I could become whoever I was capable of becoming.
In my first months in Britain, I studied an International Foundation programme. One subject was politics. It was there that I first encountered Conservatism — and first read seriously about Margaret Thatcher. Her journey spoke directly to me: a woman who refused to accept the limits others set for her, who believed in hard work and personal responsibility. Thatcher proved that where you start does not determine where you finish. She reminded me I was not alone. She reminded me that anything is possible.
I have built my life in Tower Hamlets since then, whilst working in the technology sector for over seven years: teaching coding to women; consulting on client projects and developing my skills. For example, I was nominated for the 2022 Tech Women 100 shortlist in recognition of my ability. Technology appeals to me as it innovates our lives – it is a key achievement of human ingenuity. Similarly, as a candidate I aspire to innovate so we can harness Tower Hamlets’ potential. I’m standing as a Conservative because I believe this community deserves the same thing Britain once gave me: the freedom to be more than others expect of you.
Mile End has enormous potential. It sits at the heart of a borough rich in ambition, cultural energy, and entrepreneurial spirit. But too many residents feel let down. Not by their community, but by a council that has consistently failed to turn that energy into practical results. Tower Hamlets has presided over waste, gross misconduct, and financial mismanagement for too long. Residents deserve a councillor who will scrutinise decisions properly and hold the council to account. My technology and finance background gives me exactly the tools to do that.
Housing pressure in Mile End is acute. Families are being priced out, properties are deteriorating, and the planning system has too often served developers over residents. I believe in housing policy that supports new homes without destroying neighbourhood character: that genuinely holds landlords and developers to account.
Crime and antisocial behaviour remain a persistent concern. Safe streets are not a luxury — they are the foundation on which everything else is built. I will advocate for proper resourcing of local police and a council that treats community safety as a real priority. My ambition does not end at tough talk; I want a safer borough.
Tower Hamlets should be one of London’s most attractive boroughs for business investment. Its location, talent pool, and diversity are genuine assets. Instead, local businesses tell me they feel ignored and unsupported. A thriving local economy creates jobs, sustains high streets, and funds the services residents depend on. I will champion it.
As a fiscal Conservative, I will also ensure every pound of public money is justified and honestly accounted for. That is not an ideological position. It is basic respect for hard-working taxpayers.
I have spent months on the doorsteps of Mile End, listening to residents. The concerns I hear most are consistent: councillors who disappear between elections, complaints that go unanswered, decisions made without consultation. Unfortunately, due to the other representatives in council, I cannot fix everything. However, I can promise to show up, to ask difficult questions, and to remain genuinely accountable to the people I represent.
I came to this country alone, with little, and built something here through hard work and the opportunities Britain provided me. I am a Conservative because I believe in the values that made that possible: personal responsibility, enterprise, strong communities, and the freedom to build a good life. Mile End deserves a councillor who holds those values — and who will fight to extend that same opportunity to every resident in this ward.
On 7th May, I am asking Mile End residents to vote for me not as a transaction, but as a partnership. Mile End deserves better. I intend to help deliver it.
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Dr Sarah Ingham is the author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.
A narrow waterway in the Middle East. Vital for global trade, especially for transporting oil, it is threatened with closure. A global power needs to take military action to reassert control, with Israel playing a key role … Not Iran 2026, but Suez 1956.
The Suez Crisis of 70 years ago humiliated Britain.
The post-Second World War comfort blanket of great power status was ripped away. The recent global hegemon with the largest Empire in history, the country finally realised it had been usurped by the United States.
Linking the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal cuts through Egypt. Like the Strait of Hormuz, it is a major strategic artery. Until July 1956, the Suez Canal Company, backed by the French and British governments, ran the waterway. Then Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s charismatic leader, nationalised it and took control of the Canal.
Denouncing Nasser as a “Muslim Mussolini”, Prime Minister Anthony Eden was determined to take it back and overthrow the Egyptian leader. British tonnage accounted for 28 per cent of the traffic using the waterway: two-thirds of oils imports came via it. He declared: “The industrial life of Western Europe literally depends upon the continuing free navigation of the Canal.”
While military plans were drawn up in mid-August, nothing was done until early November. Newsreels of British warships sailing for the eastern Mediterranean and the call-up of 20,000 reservists escalated the sense of crisis. Weeks, then months, passed. The military plan to re-take the Canal was constantly revised and public backing waned. In contrast, across the Arab world, there was huge support for Nasser.
Meanwhile, it was business-as-usual for the Canal under new Egyptian management. An enterprising MP Frank Bowles visited twice, stating in October he found “no difficulty at all about transit north or south.”
The British case for taking military action against Egypt became increasingly flimsy.
It would be neither legal nor legitimate. It went ahead anyway, but only after a pretext for intervention was secretly cooked up between the governments of Britain, France and Israel. This involved Israeli forces invading Egypt on 29 October, with the other two nations stepping in to “separate the belligerents”. Even 70 years on, the chicanery defies belief.
Operation Musketeer can be judged a military success. It was also, however, a political disaster.
Fearing the intervention would lead to closer alignment between Egypt and other Arab nations with Moscow, the Eisenhower administration in Washington led international condemnation. In the UN General Assembly, nation after nation demanded a ceasefire.
The US used Britain’s financial weakness as leverage. The British asked for a loan – or rather, yet another post-1945 bail-out – which Washington refused until a ceasefire was agreed. The US also threatened to sell its sterling reserves, offering the unpalatable prospect of the pound devaluing and possible bankruptcy.
Operation Musketeer had provoked what it had intended to avert: the closure of the Canal. Soldiers returned home to a country polarised by Suez, with petrol rationing and, in January 1957, PM Eden’s resignation.
Britain’s prestige was irrevocably harmed. Suez 1956 highlighted that the country was a second rank power and that any future British military operation would need US support. Iran 2026 reflects Britain’s strategic incoherence and weakness in defence capability.
One lesson was learned by Musketeer’s commander, General Sir Charles Keightley: “World public opinion is a most important weapon of war.” It is doubtful that the Trump administration considered this ahead of Operation Epic Fury.
If Labour believes that opposing controversial military action brings political success at home, Suez is a warning. By rights, the Conservatives should have been punished for the botched misadventure, but in the 1959 General Election, Eden’s successor Harold Macmillan won with a landslide majority.
Is the Starmer government betting that American forces get bested by Iran, ensuring the Trump administration is forced into a Suez-like humiliating retreat? It is the only explanation for its strategic shortsightedness in jeopardising Britain’s “Rolls Royce of allies” status.
The UK is arguably more dependent on Washington today than it was 70 years ago. Back then, Britain’s defence sector was credible: Armed Forces’ strength was 804,000 personnel in 1955. Since then, like NATO’s other European members, we have mostly outsourced defence to the Pentagon.
The US was Britain’s largest export market in 2024, accounting for £210 billion, or 22 per cent of exports. American LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) was perhaps 15 per cent of this country’s total gas supply last year. Opponents of Epic Fury could always boycott US firms, such as Google and Meta.
Despite the PM’s overwrought claims, the US did not expect the UK to “join the war”, merely give permission to use two air bases. Washington had leverage in 1956, it has leverage today.
While Britain has let down allies across the Gulf who have been loyal customers of UK defence companies, France has sent its Forces to the region, as President Macron showcases French defence capability on X.
Just like Suez, seven decades later Iran is revealing the reality of Britain’s place in the world.
“You always knew precisely where you stood with him because he always let you down.” Friends and allies of Donald Trump have ample cause to echo David Niven’s remark about Errol Flynn.
By far the most important of those friends and allies are the American people. They have twice elected Trump their President. To his supporters he offered an irresistible chance to humiliate the condescending liberals who neither knew nor cared what unfashionable Americans thought.
Trump also appealed to the isolationism which has always been a powerful current in American opinion, often the dominant one, expressed not only by the refusal of the American people to go to war in 1914 and 1939, but by no less a figure than George Washington in his tremendous Farewell Address in 1796:
“Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European Ambition, Rivalship, Interest, Humour or Caprice?”
Trump promised to put America First, never to sacrifice American lives and treasure in foreign wars, and in a primary debate in 2016 described George W Bush’s Iraq War as “a big fat mistake”.
By attacking Iran, Trump has broken this promise and betrayed his supporters. As the conservative American commentator Christopher Caldwell observes in a piece for The Spectator,
“The attack on Iran is so wildly inconsistent with the wishes of his own base, so diametrically opposed to their reading of the national interest, that it is likely to mark the end of Trumpism as a project.”
The price of petrol has shot up, bringing the war to the attention of American voters every time they fill up their cars, and this sharp rise in the cost of living is something the President cannot justify to them.
Nor can he justify the war to the wider world. No clear war aims were worked out before embarking on this adventure, so no clear war aims can now be stated, especially as the war itself is full of complications which an informed observer might have foreseen, but which were not dreamed of in Mar-a-Lago.
Were the claim by some that he acted at the behest of the Israelis true, this would in no way exculpate him. The responsibility for American involvement plainly rests with the President. The buck stops with Trump.
The President attempts to distract us from questions about morality and responsibility by playing to his undoubted strengths as a reality TV performer.
To go on winning at that tawdry game you have to go on being more disgusting than the other performers, again and again outdoing them in bad taste, and you also need at frequent intervals to change the subject, or the viewers will get bored and switch over to another channel.
Trump needs to find a quick end to the war or else American voters will switch over, and at the mid-term elections in November will turn him into the lamest of lame ducks.
The Iranian regime knows this, and can play for time.
Nobody can be certain how the war will end. How delighted one would be if the present regime in Tehran were to be overthrown and replaced with a constitutional monarchy which is on good terms with its neighbours.
But even Trump holds back from promising such a happy outcome. Much more likely, at the best, is an unhappy deal which restores freedom of navigation in the Gulf, gets a certain amount of oil and gas flowing once more through the Strait of Hormuz, but leaves open the danger of further disruption.
Freedom of navigation is and always has been in Britain’s interest, and we ought to be willing to play a full, long-term part in restoring and maintaining it in the Gulf.
We need to remember that Trump is not eternal, and that our policy should not be distorted by vain attempts to conciliate him. Channel 4 has just broadcast a three-part series, The Tony Blair Story, which recounted that Prime Minister’s energetic and in the short term triumphant campaign after the attack on the World Trade Center on 11th September 2001 to get closer than any other foreign leader to President George W Bush.
From that flowed Blair’s decision to deploy British troops alongside the Americans in the invasion of Iraq, followed by the discovery that no plans had been drawn up for the country once Saddam Hussein had been overthrown.
The Channel 4 programmes show a vulnerable old man who longs to convince us that a quarter of a century ago he did the right thing, but instead demonstrates that an air of moral seriousness, though much less vulgar than Trump’s antics, does not necessarily lead to wise decisions.
Sir Keir Starmer began by getting on surprisingly well with Trump, and hoped to follow up this success by sending Peter Mandelson to Washington.
It is curious to reflect that this manoeuvre may instead precipitate Starmer’s downfall.
Nor is his relationship with Trump as good as it was. The President now says, “Keir was willing to send two aircraft carriers after we’ve won,” and adds, “Unfortunately Keir is not Winston Churchill.”
Which prompts the thought that Trump is not Franklin D Roosevelt.
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Ageing emos, soft or hard goth girlies, and overall edgy, elegant divas will know that committing to a majority black aesthetic isn’t for the weak.
It’s all well and good in the wintertime, when the sun barely shines. But when the temperature starts to rise? Suddenly your dark, heat-radiating wardrobe begins to feel like a death trap.
And that’s to say nothing of the playful and refreshing springtime vibes you might want to get in on after a long, bleak winter.
If you’re feeling a bit stuck with your transitional weather wardrobe, but don’t want to leave your love of black garments behind, here’s a list of the best buys for staying cool (get it?) now that spring has sprung.
Donald Trump made a shocking joke during an Oval Office meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi that prompted his guest to stiffen in her seat as she glanced around the room.
The two leaders met on Thursday as Trump’s war in Iran continues to strain the global economy. Trump took the majority of questions from reporters before asking for one more from one of the “beautiful” Japanese correspondents.
He called on a man, who apparently seemed confused.
“He doesn’t think he’s beautiful,” Trump joked.
After the reporter asked Trump why he did not tell allies in Europe and Asia about his plan to attack Iran, saying it confused the Japanese people, Trump replied that he needed to count on the element of surprise.
“For one thing, you don’t want to signal too much, you know? When we went in, we went in very hard, and we didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise,” he said.
Then he went for another joke: “Who knows better about surprise than Japan? OK? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbour? OK? Right?”
Takaichi, who speaks some English but was using an interpreter at times, straightened in her seat and tilted her head slightly to glance at her aides upon mention of Pearl Harbour.
“Hmm,” said the prime minister, who was born two decades after Imperial Japan’s surprise attack on the US naval base in Hawaii.
Trump administration officials seated to the president’s left chuckled before silence gripped the room.
“No, you believe in surprise, I think much more so than us,” Trump went on.
“And we had a surprise,” he said. “We did.”
Thursday’s meeting marked Takaichi’s first visit to the White House since taking office last October.
Toward the beginning of the session, she heaped praise on her American counterpart, saying, “I firmly believe it is only you, Donald, who can achieve peace across the world.”
Despite Trump’s urging, Japan has not committed to sending its naval ships to escort commercial vessels traversing the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively shut down through threats to attack any ship that attempts a crossing.
Earlier this month, Takaichi pledged to have “candid talks” with Trump when they met.
Since the Green Party’s win in the Gorton and Denton by-election last month, the mainstream media have been hailing it as a left-wing ‘populist’ movement that can challenge the right-wing populists of Reform UK. In the excited words of Politico, the Greens ‘played Reform at its own game – and won’.
The Financial Times seemed similarly enamoured. One of its op-eds claimed that leader Zack Polanski had turned the Greens from a cuddly environmental campaign group ‘into a combative left-wing populist political vehicle that advocates for working people against the ultra-wealthy’. Even right-wing commentators have acceded to the characterisation of the Greens as left-wing populists.
The presentation of the Greens as a populist alternative to Reform, indeed as counter-populist movement, has been months in the making. Last September, The Times painted Polanski as a proponent of ‘left-wing populism’ who ‘hopes to hypnotise the electorate with his own brand of Faragism’. The following month, a commentator on UnHerd talked up the rise of the Greens’ counter-populism, as ‘the backlash to the backlash’ against the political establishment.
The argument commentators and politicos have been advancing over several months is simple enough. They claim that the Greens are peddling a populist politics to rival the appeal of Reform. They believe that Polanski’s counter-populists can beat conservative populists at their own game – that the Greens can neutralise Reform’s appeal
But there’s one big problem with all this. The Greens are anything but populist. Indeed, the very fact that significant parts of the mainstream media are so keen on the Greens is a sign of their elite appeal.
The programme and behaviour of the Greens show that they are best characterised as a radical centrist formation. Under Polanski, a former Lib Dem activist, the Greens have shown they have virtually no non-negotiable principles. During the recent Gorton and Denton by-election, they conspicuously avoided campaigning around the party’s long-held concerns about the environment. Even the party’s current embrace of ‘anti-austerity’ politics was pushed into the background. Instead, they focussed on identity politics, mobilising Muslim voters by playing the Islamic sectarian card.
This identitarian obsession is telling. One of the defining features of populists, whether of the left or right, is that they claim to speak for and represent the people – for all citizens of the nation. The Greens did not do that in Gorton and Denton. They opted to engage with one section of the community, even publishing election literature in languages that the vast majority of British people do not understand. Similarly, Green activists waved the flags of Palestine and Pakistan, rather than the flags of Britain or England. This was tribal politics – it was the very antithesis of populism.
This is hardly a surprise. Today’s Green Party is profoundly hostile towards a key element of any populist politics – namely, democratic citizenship. Its vision of a ‘world without borders’ negates the very idea of being a citizen of a national polity. Hence, it would happily extend voting rights to all migrants with visas, grant them access to the benefits system, and allow them to bring family members to join them.
In effect, the Greens would denude citizenship of its meaning. Voting, having been a privilege confined to citizens, would be extended to just about anyone entering the UK. And the social contract between citizens and the state, underwritten by access to social services and benefits, would be torn apart.
Historically, left-wing populists took defending citizenship rights very seriously. In the 19th century, the American People’s Party, one of the first radical populist movements, was committed to protecting the people from the ruling class’s attempts to lower living standards through the importing of cheap labour. Its platform called for a shorter working week, restrictions on immigration and public ownership of railways and communication lines.
Populists proper take the nation and national borders very seriously, because it is only within such boundaries that democracy can flourish. Popular sovereignty is intimately linked with the sovereignty of a nation. A people, a demos, can only exist within the confines of a clearly demarcated community.
But the Greens regard such a bounded community with contempt. They prefer a politics that privileges divisive ethnic affiliations over national citizenship.
Far from being a people’s party, the achingly middle-class Greens are the party of Britain’s cultural elites. They share the same worldview, the same luxury beliefs, the same obsessions. They are the party of identity politics, gender ideology and pseudo-bohemian lifestyles – hence the commitment to legalising hard drugs.
The Greens’ commitment to erase national borders and national citizenship put them firmly at odds with the British people and their interests.
Frank Furedi is the executive director of the think-tank, MCC-Brussels.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has refused to provide a time frame for ending Donald Trump’s war against Iran, which the former Fox News host earlier this month said could be over by Saturday.
Hegseth told reporters at a Pentagon briefing that while the United States’ largest war in two decades was “on track,” it would end only when Trump wanted it to end and that he could not set a date.
“It will be at the president’s choosing ultimately where we say, hey, we’ve achieved what we need to on behalf of the American people to ensure our security. So no, no time set on that, but we’re very much on track,” he said.
At a White House photo opportunity a few hours later with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Trump was not asked about the duration of the Iran war but claimed, yet again, that it was going better than planned. “I would say we are substantially ahead of schedule,” he said.
Trump at the outset of the attacks said the war was “projected” to last four to five weeks but that the United States had the “capability” to continue waging it for far longer.
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
On March 4, four days after the air assault began, Hegseth said the war could end even sooner. “You know, you can say four weeks, but it could be six, it could be eight, it could be three. Ultimately, we set the pace and the tempo,” he said in a briefing.
The three-week time frame would run through Friday, with week four starting in the overnight hours Saturday. There is no indication, however, that the US will end the attacks and withdraw the ships, planes and personnel deployed to the Middle East for what Trump calls “an excursion” in the near future.
Hegseth on Thursday confirmed that the White House will be seeking a large supplemental appropriations package to pay for the war, which officials have estimated is costing as much as $2 billion a day.
“As far as $200 billion, I think that number could move. Obviously, it takes money to kill bad guys. So we’re going back to Congress and folks there to ― to ensure that we’re properly funded for what’s been done, for what we may have to do in the future, ensure that our ammunition is ― everything’s refilled and not just refilled, but above and beyond,” Hegseth said.
In the latest “defensive” news from the UK’s role in the Anglo-American-Zionist illegal war on Iran, the UK held a meeting between 13 defence companies and Gulf diplomats to discuss providing “defensive” equipment against Iranian attacks. Defence Minister Luke Pollard hosted the session.
The UK is stepping up for our partners in the Gulf.
Defence Minister @LukePollard convened 13 UK defence companies alongside Gulf ambassadors and defence attachés to explore urgent defensive support against Iranian drone and missile attacks.
UK industry is ready to deliver. pic.twitter.com/uDJDClZTp4
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 18, 2026
People were quick to point out the greed of British arms companies.
Imagine seeing the illegal war in Iran as an opportunity to make money https://t.co/XeOsuGHWHO
— Harry Eccles (@Heccles94) March 18, 2026
The 13 defence companies present were ADS, MARSS, MSI, MBDA, Frankenberg, Leonardo UK, Thales, QinetiQ, OSL Ltd, BAE Systems, Ocean Infinity, Cambridge Aerospace, and Uforce, and they met Diplomats from seven Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Iraq and Jordan.
The UK is stepping up to warmonger in the Gulf. https://t.co/Dq0yFc9LNw
— GlumBird (@GlumBird) March 18, 2026
New opportunities galore for arms dealers and co
UK military planners have also been dispatched to US Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida to help plot a route to unblock the key shipping lane, according to The Times — more “defensive” acts by the UK.
British military helping US plan Strait of Hormuz reopening after Trump bemoaned Starmer’s response to fuel crisis https://t.co/HuEJBO5cbP
— LBC (@LBC) March 19, 2026
Labour MP Al Carns is beating the war drums particularly loudly. Earlier this week in Parliament, the Armed Forces minister said the government was not ruling out anything when asked if the UK saw “de-escalation is key.”
Defence Minister Al Carns has said the government ‘is not going to rule anything out’
Read more: https://t.co/t50o6L6V9b pic.twitter.com/rnShip7A9i
— The i Paper (@theipaper) March 16, 2026
He told Parliament:
We will continue to work in a comprehensive and calm manner with our allies and partners to ensure that we can come up with a solution to the strait of Hormuz, and we will not rule anything out, because we cannot guarantee where this war is going to go.
Carns also claimed in parliament that Iran’s support to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis “has been killing British forces for 20 years”. Declassified was quick to reprimand the statement on the lack of evidence.
Defence minister Al Carns claims in parliament that Iran’s support to Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis “has been killing British forces for 20 years”.
Where is the evidence for this?#DCUKparliament pic.twitter.com/IWwgpzomEQ
— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) March 17, 2026
On Thursday, he told the Sun that any mission to reopen the Strait of Hormuz would require a massive multinational coalition, warning that operating without allies would be far worse. He said: “We’re not anywhere near that at the moment, but I would say one thing: that there’s one thing worse than working with allies, and that’s working without them.”
He said:
In 1987 when this last happened, it took 30 warships to escort in the Strait of Hormuz. That gives you just an example of the resources required.
UK is relying on flimsy ‘defensive’ grounds
UK PM and other cabinet ministers have repeatedly used flimsy grounds of just being involved in “defensive actions against Iran.
Allowing the US to use British bases and commit war crimes in not “defensive actions”. pic.twitter.com/Y2Zfq2JMFj
— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) March 18, 2026
This use of UK bases for American bombers has been heavily criticised. Journalist and former UK diplomat Craig Murray said:
No other European state is prepared to let US bombing runs on Iran overfly their airspace. Starmer lets them actually load their bombs and take off from UK airfields. He calls it “defensive” bombing.
No other European state is prepared to let US bombing runs on Iran overfly their airspace.
Starmer lets them actually load their bombs and take off from UK airfields.
He calls it “defensive” bombing. https://t.co/LmSZwSy340
— Craig Murray (@CraigMurrayOrg) March 19, 2026
Electronic Intifada journalist Ali Abunimah argued that assisting an aggressor by protecting them from those attempting to halt their attack does not constitute a defensive act, but rather makes one an active accomplice in the original crime. He was responding to the Foreign Office’s statement that the UK is continuing defensive military support for partners against Iranian strikes, alongside diplomatic activity in the UK national interest.
Helping a mass killer carry out aggression by shielding them from those who are trying to stop the attack is not “defensive.” It’s being an active accomplice in the original crime. https://t.co/sgvVErGFnm
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) March 18, 2026
UK bases, ships and aircraft are already central to the US-Israeli war effort. Starmer has tried vainly to frame British involvement as purely ‘defensive.’
Featured image via Campaign Against Arms Trade
The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) has called off its planned strikes on the London Underground this month.
The news comes following indications from tube bosses that they’ll negotiate on what RMT is calling the “imposition” of a “fake four-day week”.
However, whilst the March strike dates are off, RMT has stated that its industrial action in April and May will still go ahead. Beyond this, the union has also added two new strike dates on 16 and 18 June.
RMT — ‘Serious concerns around fatigue’
The planned strikes would have taken place from noon on 24 March til 11:59 on 25 March, and the same times on 26-27 March.
The dispute centers on Underground bosses’ proposals for a condensed-hours working week.
Under the proposal, the majority of drivers would work their 36 hours over four days rather than five. However, in the 4-day plan, the workers would receive paid meal breaks.
To put that another way, the workers would see their hours spent driving each day jump from just over 7 to just under 9.
The proposal is currently being tested on a voluntary basis on the Bakerloo line.
When RMT first called the strikes earlier this month, general secretary Eddie Dempsey explained that:
We are clear that these proposals raise serious concerns around fatigue, safety and work-life balance.
Despite our best efforts over many months, no satisfactory outcome has been reached so we have no choice but to call strike dates.
There is still time for London Underground to come up with a workable solution but we will take strike action if we cannot get a negotiated settlement.
Instead, the union is advocating for a 32-hour week over four days. This would see drivers working 3 hours less each week.
Negotiations
However, London Underground has now relented in its position. RMT announced that:
After a year of telling us their imposed plan is non-negotiable they have now agreed to negotiate with RMT.
The dispute over the imposition of a condensed hours four-day week on tube drivers is far from over but LU management have taken steps in the right direction and are now taking the matter seriously.
That being said, unless London Underground can reach a settlement with the union, more strikes are on the way.
RMT has previously announced action for four more 24-hour periods. These will take place on 21 and 23 April, and likewise on 19 and 21 May. Yesterday, 18 March, RMT also announced similar strikes on 16 and 18 June.
Dempsey said:
Through our show of industrial strength and unity, we have forced management into a position where they are now willing to seriously engage with the issues our members want addressing.
Further talks will take place and the dispute remains live.
Iranian retaliatory attacks on its Ras Laffan energy complex in Qatar on Wednesday and the early hours of Thursday have spiked gas prices globally. It has also caused Trump to put out an unhinged statement.
Statement from President Trump on South Pars Gas Field: pic.twitter.com/YrjhDdGTxP
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 19, 2026
Iran also struck Saudi energy facilities in retaliation for Israel’s bombing of Iran’s South Pars gas field.
Iran said it is planning to attack the energy infrastructure of the US and Israeli allies in the Gulf until its “complete destruction” if its own energy facilities are targeted further.
Trump claims the US “knew nothing about this particular attack” — the attack on Iran’s South Pars Gas Field on Wednesday — blaming it squarely on Israel.
The South Pars field is located in the Persian Gulf, between Iran and Qatar, and the field is shared between the two countries.
Trump then stated that there will be “NO MORE ATTACKS” by Israel on the South Pars Field unless Iran “unwisely decides” to attack Qatar again. If Qatar’s LNG facilities are attacked again, Trump says the US, “with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field” with a level of force Iran has “never seen or witnessed before.”
Trump’s threat is characteristic of his hyperbolic and escalatory language. We shouldn’t forget that Trump FULLY destroyed the Iranian navy several times so far.
His core claim that the US “knew nothing about” the initial attack on Iran’s South Pars Field is probably another lie from the habitual liar. But who knows!
Qatar LNG — a weak spot?
Despite the use of hyperbolic and escalatory language, some think this is a de-escalatory effort by Trump. “Trump calls for de-escalation as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut and oil rises beyond $116 a barrel,” Bloomberg said.
Trump calls for de-escalation as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut and oil rises beyond $116 a barrel.
Get the latest news and analysis in our live blog: https://t.co/hVN6mGh31g
— Bloomberg (@business) March 19, 2026
Al Mayadeen reported that Trump and ‘Netanyahu’ hoped the attack on Iran’s gas fields would deter Iranian action in the Strait of Hormuz, but the plan backfired, prompting Trump to disavow it.
Netanyahu and Trump hoped that the attack on #Iran‘s gas fields would deter action in the Strait of #Hormuz. Evidently, the plan backfired, prompting the #US president to disavow the attack. https://t.co/Cjxi9V6qUA
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) March 19, 2026
Writer Philip Pilkington commented that Donald Trump has been drawn into a “suicidal energy war,” arguing that the president’s statement demonstrates the administration has “ZERO control over the situation.”
Trump has been sucked into a suicidal energy war. If you wanted evidence the administration has ZERO control over the situation, here it is. 🇺🇸🇮🇷 pic.twitter.com/NLcwjoX3kA
— Philip Pilkington (@philippilk) March 19, 2026
The undeniable truth
Since it is hard to take what Trump says about the war seriously, the real-world consequences are the best judges. Anglo-American-Zionist illegal war on Iran has escalated this week.
Israel claimed to have killed intelligence minister Ismail Khatib in Tehran Tuesday night, plus security chief Ali Larijani and Basij paramilitary leader Gholamreza Soleimani.
After more than three weeks of war in Iran, thousands of people have been killed, millions more displaced, and billions of dollars have been spent. Arms dealers are lining their pockets.
The only certainty is that the bloodshed and destruction continue while politicians argue over who knew what and the Anglo-American-Zionist axis presses on with its murderous campaign.
Featured image via the Canary
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