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WASHINGTON When an alarmed Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, called the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, demanding to know why the president of the United States had suggested he was coming to the Capitol while Congress met to certify his election defeat, the person on the other end of the line had just turned 25 years old.

I said, Ill run the traps on this, Cassidy Hutchinson, now 26, testified this week before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, recalling what she had told Mr. McCarthy, Republican of California. I can assure you, were not coming to the Capitol.

Ms. Hutchinsons two hours of testimony provided a riveting account of President Donald J. Trumps mind-set and actions the day of the mob attack and situated the young aide an assistant by title, but a gatekeeper in practice at the very center of some of the most sensitive conversations and events of that day.

It also pulled back the curtain on a little-acknowledged truth about how Washington works: The capitals power centers may be helmed largely by the geriatric set, but they are fueled by recent college graduates, often with little to no previous job experience beyond an internship. And while many of those young players rank low on the official food chain, their proximity to the pinnacle of power gives them disproportionate influence, and a front-row seat to critical moments that can define the country.

Sometimes, the interns themselves appear to be running the show.

After the House investigative committee accused Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, of attempting to hand-deliver to Vice President Mike Pence a slate of false electoral votes for Mr. Trump, Mr. Johnson, 67, blamed the incident on a young underling. He claimed that an unidentified House intern had instructed his staff to give the list of fake electors to Mr. Pence.

Other former Trump aides who have appeared in video testimony during the Jan. 6 hearings include Nick Luna, now 35, Mr. Trumps former body man; Sarah Matthews, now 27, a former deputy White House press secretary; and Ben Williamson, now 29, like Ms. Hutchinson a former aide to Mark Meadows, the final Trump White House chief of staff.

The committee has also featured some of its own young-looking investigators in videos laying out its work.

The relative youth of critical players wielding sway in the government is not a new phenomenon.

Lawrence Higby, who served as a top aide to H.R. Haldeman, President Richard M. Nixons chief of staff, was 25 years old when he testified as a key witness during the Watergate hearings.

President Lyndon B. Johnsons final chief of staff, James R. Jones, was 28 years old when he was appointed to the top job in the White House.

In an interview, Mr. Jones said he was able to rise so high so quickly by following the advice he had received from his boss, W. Marvin Watson, when he joined the White House staff at the ripe old age of 25.

What I was doing was passing his notes to the president, and he said, Youll be noticed at the right time. Just do your work now and stay out of the presidents view.

Mr. Jones added, You just had to be at the right place at the right time. I played very low key, I tried to give the credit of successes to others, I didnt talk to reporters thats how I think I made it. I probably would have made a number of key decisions differently with more years on me.

For the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault, relying on junior aides like Ms. Hutchinson who held internships with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana and then at the White House before joining Mr. Trumps staff has been a crucial part of its strategy. With many of Mr. Trumps senior advisers refusing to cooperate, investigators moved down the organizational chart and quietly turned to at least half a dozen lower-level former staff members who provided critical information about their bosses activities.

We are definitely taking advantage of the fact that most senior-level people in Washington depend on a lot of young associates and subordinates to get anything done, Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, told Politico last month, claiming that the young people still have their ethics intact.

Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee, compared Ms. Hutchinson favorably to the more seasoned officials who have stonewalled the panel.

Her superiors men many years older a number of them are hiding behind executive privilege, anonymity and intimidation, Ms. Cheney said in a speech this week. (Her father, the former vice president Dick Cheney, became deputy chief of staff in President Gerald R. Fords White House at the age of 33.)

John Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said it has always been the case that in the White House, there are a lot of people in their late 20s and early 30s coming from campaigns or from Capitol Hill for jobs with considerable responsibilities.

Theyre expected to perform with fealty to the institution and the Constitution, Mr. Podesta said. In this case, it seems like the younger people did a better job than the older people on that front.

They also have longer careers ahead of them, perhaps making them less willing to tie themselves forever to Mr. Trumps efforts to overturn the election.

For ambitious young people, government jobs in Washington have long offered a jet-fueled rise to power that the private sector, however lucrative, cant compete with.

You can get a better job as a 24-year-old in Washington in government than you can in a big company, said Steve Elmendorf, a well-connected Washington lobbyist who early in his career worked as a senior adviser to Representative Richard Gephardt, the Democratic leader. The West Wing is physically so small, the person who is the 24-year-old is sitting right on top of the principals. Young people end up getting a lot of responsibility, because the principals are so busy and so hard to get to.

That makes the assistants into gatekeepers who become players in their own right.

If you cant figure out how to get Ron Klain on the phone, he said, referring to President Bidens chief of staff, figure out the three people who sit outside his office.

Adding to the post-collegiate feel of Capitol Hill and the West Wing is the issue of who can afford to work in government, and for how long.

The average age of a House staffer is 31, according to the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to transparency in government, which noted in a report that the wage gap between the private and public sector may encourage staff to seek greener pastures while depriving Congress of experience and expertise.

A chief of staff on average would earn 40 percent more in the private sector than on Capitol Hill, according to the report, and ex-staffers who become lobbyists can increase their earnings by many multiples.

During her time in the Trump administration, Ms. Hutchinson, whose title was special assistant to the president for legislative affairs, earned $72,700, according to White House records. The most senior officials earned up to $180,000.

Still, she was there in the West Wing to witness the ketchup-dripping aftermath when Mr. Trump is said to have thrown his lunch against the wall in a rage that William P. Barr, the attorney general, had said publicly that there had been no widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

It was Ms. Hutchinson to whom the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, turned with a dire warning about what would happen if Mr. Trump followed through with his plan to follow his supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6. Were going to get charged with every crime imaginable, Ms. Hutchinson said Mr. Cipollone told her.

And Mr. Meadows, who was said to have brought Ms. Hutchinson to virtually every meeting he attended, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trumps personal lawyer, addressed her familiarly as Cass as they spoke freely to her about what they were anticipating on Jan. 6.

As she leaned against the doorway to his office a few days before, she testified, Mr. Meadows confided to Ms. Hutchinson, Things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6.

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The 20-Somethings Who Help the 70-Somethings Run Washington - The New York Times

About the position

This PhD project is in line with the research activities performed at the Department of Information Security and Communication Technology (IIK) and is closely linked to the Innovation Project for the Industrial Sector named SALT - Secure privacy preserving Authentication using faciaL biometrics to proTect your identity sponsored from Norwegian Research Council, Norway.

The objective of the project is to create the next generation face authentication services with strong presentation attack detection and privacy-preserving techniques.

The PhD candidates will have the opportunity to collaborate with researchers in this project consortia and can benefit from the research and collaborative training activities together with leading biometrics start-up Mobai AS and leading financial companies such as Vipps, BankID and SpareBank 1.

The position reports Head of Department.

Duties of the position

Required selection criteria

The qualification requirement is that you have completed a masters degree or second degree (equivalent to 120 credits) with a strong academic background in Computer Science or equivalent education with a grade of B or better in terms ofNTNUs grading scale. If you do not have letter grades from previous studies, you must have an equally good academic foundation. If you are unable to meet these criteria you may be considered only if you can document that you are particularly suitable for education leading to a PhD degree.

In addition, the candidate must have:

The appointment is to be made in accordance with Regulations concerning the degrees ofPhilosophiaeDoctor (PhD)andPhilosodophiaeDoctor (PhD) in artistic researchnational guidelines for appointment as PhD, post doctor and research assistant

Preferred selection criteria

Personal characteristics

We offer

Salary and conditions

PhD candidates are remunerated in code 1017, and are normally remunerated at gross from NOK 491 200 per annum before tax, depending on qualifications and seniority. From the salary, 2% is deducted as a contribution to the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund.

The period of employment is 3 years.

Appointment to a PhD position requires that you are admitted to thePhD programme inInformation Security and Communication Technologywithin three months of employment, and that you participate in an organized PhD programme during the employment period.

The engagement is to be made in accordance with the regulations in force concerningState Employees and Civil Servants, and the acts relating to Control of the Export of Strategic Goods, Services and Technology. Candidates who by assessment of the application and attachment are seen to conflict with the criteria in the latter law will be prohibited from recruitment to NTNU. After the appointment you must assume that there may be changes in the area of work.

It is a prerequisite you can be present at and accessible to the institution daily.

About the application

Applicants must upload the following documents within the closing date:

Please submit your application electronically via Jobbnorge website. The application and supporting documentation to be used as the basis for the assessment must be in English. Applications submitted elsewhere/incomplete applications will not be considered.

NTNU is committed to following evaluation criteria for research quality according toThe San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment - DORA.

General information

Working at NTNU

A good work environment is characterized by diversity. We encourage qualified candidates to apply, regardless of their gender, functional capacity or cultural background.

The city of Gjvikhas a population of 30 000 and is a town known for its rich music and cultural life. The beautiful nature surrounding the city is ideal for an active outdoor life! The Norwegian welfare state, including healthcare, schools, kindergartens and overall equality, is probably the best of its kind in the world.

As an employeeatNTNU, you must at all times adhere to the changes that the development in the subject entails and the organizational changes that are adopted.

Information Act (Offentleglova), your name, age, position and municipality may be made public even if you have requested not to have your name entered on the list of applicants.

If you have any questions about the position, please contact email:raghavendra.ramachandra@ntnu.no. If you have any questions about the recruitment process, please contact Katrine Rennan, e-mail:Katrine.rennan@ntnu.no.

Please submit your application electronically via jobbnorge.no with your CV, diplomas and certificates. Applications submitted elsewhere will not be considered. Diploma Supplement is required to attach for European Master Diplomas outside Norway. Chinese applicants are required to provide confirmation of Master Diploma fromChina Credentials Verification (CHSI).

If you are invited for interview you must include certified copies of transcripts and reference letters. Please refer to the application number 2022/22061 when applying.

Application deadline: 15.08.2022

NTNU - knowledge for a better world

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) creates knowledge for a better world and solutions that can change everyday life.

Department of Information Security and Communication Technology

Research is vital to the security of our society. We teach and conduct research in cyber security, information security, communications networks and networked services. Our areas of expertise include biometrics, cyber defence, cryptography, digital forensics, security in e-health and welfare technology, intelligent transportation systems and malware. The Department of Information Security and Communication Technology is one of seven departments in theFaculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering.

Deadline15th August 2022EmployerNTNU - Norwegian University of Science and TechnologyMunicipalityGjvikScopeFulltimeDuration TemporaryPlace of service Campus Gjvik

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PhD Candidate in Advance Machine Learning towards Generalized Face Presentation Attack Detection job with NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE &...

Hayeks father, August, was a physician and a professor of botany at the University of Vienna. His mother, Felicitas, was the daughter of Franz von Juraschek, a professor and later a prominent civil servant. Because his mothers family was relatively wealthy, Hayek and his two younger brothers had a comfortable childhood in Vienna, which was then capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

During World War I Hayek served in a field artillery battery on the Italian front, and after the war he enrolled at the University of Vienna. Hayek was attracted to both law and psychology in his early university years, but he settled on law for his first degree in 1921. Among his classmates were a number of people who would become prominent economists, including Fritz Machlup, Gottfried von Haberler, and Oskar Morgenstern. In 1923, his last year at the university, Hayek studied under the Austrian economist Friedrich von Wieser and was awarded a second doctorate in political economy. He also began working at a temporary government office, where he met Ludwig von Mises, a monetary theorist and author of a book-length critique of socialism. (Von Misess book was originally published as Die Gemeinwirtschaft: Untersuchungen ber den Sozialismus in 1922 and translated as Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis in 1936.)

Von Mises quickly became Hayeks mentor. After a trip to the United States in 192324, Hayek returned to Vienna, married, and with von Misess assistance became the director of the newly founded Austrian Institute for Business Cycle Research. Hayek also became a regular attendee at von Misess biweekly seminar, passed his Habilitation (an oral examination that is a necessary step toward becoming a university teacher), and published his first book, Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle, in 1929.

In early 1931 Hayek was invited to England by Lionel Robbins to present four lectures on monetary economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). The lectures would ultimately lead to his appointment the following year as the Tooke Professor of Economic Science and Statistics at LSE, where Hayek remained until 1950, having become a naturalized British subject in 1938. Immediately upon arriving in England, Hayek became embroiled in a debate with University of Cambridge economist John Maynard Keynes over their respective theories about the role and effect of money within a developed economy. Hayek wrote a lengthy critical review of Keyness 1930 book, A Treatise on Money, to which Keynes forcefully replied, in the course of which he attacked Hayeks own recent book, Prices and Production (1931). Both economists were criticized by other economists, and this caused each to rethink his framework. Keynes finished first, publishing in 1936 what would become perhaps the most famous economics book of the century, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Hayeks own book, The Pure Theory of Capital, did not appear until 1941, and both World War II and the books opaqueness caused it to be much less noticed than Keyness work.

In the mid-1930s Hayek also participated in a debate among economists on the merits of socialism. Those discussions would help shape his later ideas on economics and knowledge, eventually presented in his 1936 presidential address to the London Economic Club. During the war years LSE evacuated to Cambridge. There Hayek worked on his Abuse of Reason project, a wide-ranging critique of an assortment of doctrines that he lumped together under the label of scientism, which he defined as the slavish imitation of the method and language of Science by social scientists who had appropriated the methods of the natural sciences in areas where they did not apply. Although the project as originally envisioned was never completed, it became the basis for a number of essays and also led to the 1944 publication of Hayeks most famous book, The Road to Serfdom, which became an immediate best-seller. In the same year Hayek was elected as a fellow of the British Academy.

At the end of World War II, Hayek began work on a theoretical psychology book based on an essay he had written during his student days in Vienna. In 1947 he organized a meeting of 39 scholars from 10 countries at Mont Plerin, on Lake Geneva in the Swiss Alps. This was the beginning of the Mont Plerin Society, an organization dedicated to articulating the principles that would lead to the establishment and preservation of free societies. Von Mises, Robbins, and Machlup were among the original attendees, as were Milton Friedman, Frank Knight, George Stigler, Aaron Director, Michael Polanyi, and the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper. Hayek had been instrumental in bringing Popper from New Zealand to LSE at wars end, and he had also secured a publisher for Poppers book The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945). Popper and Hayek would remain lifelong friends.

In 1950 Hayek left LSE for a position on the newly formed Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. In 1952 his book on psychology, The Sensory Order, was published, as was a collection of his essays from the Abuse of Reason project under the title The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason. Hayek would spend 12 years at Chicago. While there he wrote articles on a number of themes, among them political philosophy, the history of ideas, and social science methodology. Aspects of his wide-ranging research were woven into his 1960 book on political philosophy, The Constitution of Liberty.

F.A. Hayek, 1950.

In 1962 Hayek left Chicago for the University of Freiburg im Breisgau in West Germany. He remained there until his retirement in 1968, when he accepted an honorary professorship at the University of Salzburg in Austria. In 1974 Hayek was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics, which, ironically, he shared with Gunnar Myrdal, whose political and economic views were often opposed to his.

Hayek returned to Freiburg permanently in 1977 and finished work on what would become the three-part Law, Legislation and Liberty (197379), a critique of efforts to redistribute incomes in the name of social justice. Later in the 1970s Hayeks monograph The Denationalization of Money was published by the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, one of the many classical liberal think tanks that Hayek, directly or indirectly, had a hand in establishing.

NASA engineers asked Sally Ride if she needed 100 tampons for her first trip into space, which lasted six days.

In the early 1980s Hayek began writing what would be his final book, a critique of socialism. Because his health was deteriorating, another scholar, philosopher William W. Bartley III, helped edit the ultimate volume, The Fatal Conceit, which was published in 1988. Hayek died four years later, having lived long enough to see the reunification of Germany.

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F.A. Hayek | Biography, Books, & Facts | Britannica

The prerequisite to building left power within the Labour Party is building a fighting socialist movement outside of it. Protecting the internal power the left currently possesses is important. However, without giving due focus to expanding and nurturing the activist base upon which any serious attempt to take control of the party would rely, the left will not only forfeit what we have today, but future opportunities too.

That is why I am standing for the Momentum National Coordinating Group (NCG) on the Your Momentum slate. Any coherent plan for the organised left in the Labour party must recognise that internally we are in retreat. Externally, however, the scale of our crises necessitates not just change but organisation. Polling shows popular support for strike action, thousands joined RMT picket lines last week and swathes of young people continue to be politicised by the climate emergency. This is the terrain which Starmers leadership has forfeited, and thus the terrain which socialists in the Labour Party are obligated to occupy, and given our present material conditions its ripe for organising.

The Labour Party, of course, remains the only vehicle we have to gain state power and we have no choice but to work with what we have. The way we convince activists working in non-party political environments, like the climate movement, to join our cause and give their time for the advancement of socialism within the party is not by neglecting the broader movement, but by rolling our sleeves up and doing the work alongside them.

Reduced to its very fundamentals, Momentums purpose must be to build an active, engaged base of socialist Labour Party members who can select principled candidates and pound the streets to get them elected. These prospective members need a reason to join our cause. If Momentum members can fight, and lead, the struggle for socialist change in communities across this country, we provide them with that reason.

This is how we grow our influence within the Party again. To win internally, the left must grow its ranks once more. With an insurgent leadership campaign like that of 2015 an unlikely but not impossible prospect, we must find an alternative. If grassroots left powerexists anywhere in this country just now, it is in our trade unions.

Look no further than Mick Lynch and the RMTs innate ability to clearly communicate class politics, winning the public over even when faced with the hostilest of media. Their narrative is clear. Its about us, and them. Those who create the wealth, and those who profit fromthat wealth creation. Over the last week, Marxs theory of surplus labour has been communicated countless times on TV screens and its garnered popular support.

The next task though is to mobilise that popular support to join the picket line. This can only be achieved at a grassroots level through community organising and, with close to 20,000 members and active local groups, Momentum is well placed to do this. Supporting thedevelopment of the UKs emergent class struggle trade unionism in the ways that we can is crucial to combatting the multiple crises facing workers in our country, to building a movement that can change the political weather, and to strengthening the position of the left within the Labour Party. Momentums current NCG has begun the work of creating a trade unionists network to help with this task. If elected this will be a priority for Your Momentum.

The fight within the Labour Party is a fruitless one if it is not accompanied by concrete socialist organisation and attempts to advance the class struggle in our communities. Internal Labour elections must be fought, and fought determinedly, because the power we have within the Labour Party currently is a foundation upon which we can build. But, we can only build if the energy of the class struggle is propelled inside the Labour Party and that means Momentum must build those links. It is not a question of one or the other and Your Momentum gets that.

Momentum is too important to fail. As the largest organisation of socialists in the UK, it should play a leading role in advancing the cause of the working class in our age of crisis. Your Momentum has a plan to build left power but ultimately, only with patient and steady work in the manner outlined above can we turn the tide in UK politics.

Coll McCail is a candidate for the Momentum NCG elections standing on the Your Momentum slate for Scotland

PS. We hope you enjoyed this article. Bright Green has got big plans for the future to publish many more articles like this. You can help make that happen. Pleasedonate to Bright Green now.

Image credit: FunkDooby Creative Commons

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Momentum should play a leading role in advancing the cause of the working class in our age of crisis | Coll McCail - Bright Green

After a week of determined action by tens of thousands of rail workers, the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Union (RMT) huddled back into talks Monday with Network Rail and the train operating companies.

Yesterday, RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch confirmed that all cuts remain on the table, including mandatory 7-day working, new grading structures, salaries and roles, lower pay and longer hours contracts, and massive attacks on the railways pension scheme. He issued a statement explaining that the employers have taken an extremely hard line, we believe at the behest of the government in order to push through their agenda of 2 billion of cuts and what they call Workforce Reform.

Yet RMT officials are continuing their fruitless negotiations with Network Rail and the train operating companies, complaining that government ministers should be in the room.

The Johnson governments brutal agenda for workplace reform at all costs is crystal clear, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson declaring Sunday that there will be no return to business as usual and that mass closures of ticketing offices will proceed. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps denounces strikers for upholding steam age working practices, insisting the Thatcherite agenda for Great British Railways will be imposed.

The RMT has already signalled its willingness to reach an accommodation with the government. Its sole demands are for a below-inflation 7 percent pay deal and a commitment to no compulsory redundancies. But more than 2,900 railway jobs have already been destroyed in recent months via a union-endorsed Voluntary Severance Scheme.

It is necessary to draw a balance sheet of last weeks national strikes and the political lessons for the working class.

Last weeks three-day strike by rail workers won massive public sympathy as the start of a fightback among millions of workers hit by the same cost-of-living crisis and who want to defeat the class war offensive of the Johnson government and the employers.

Strike ballots are underway this week of 40,000 BT telecoms workers, 115,000 postal workers and thousands of train drivers. British Airways ground staff will strike this summer, joining rail workers, refuse workers, bus drivers and barristers. Nurses, junior doctors, teachers and civil servants are calling for strikes. If brought together, these disputes would encompass three million workers and lay the basis for a general strike to bring down the Johnson government.

Workers are entering battle as part of an international resurgence of class struggle. General strikes have taken place in Belgium, Italy and Greece. Mass strikes have erupted in Turkey and Spain, while pilots and other airline workers have struck across Europe. On every continent, the working class is launching collective action against soaring inflation and the impact of a pandemic that continues to claim lives. Governments are pouring billions into military budgets as they prepare direct military aggression against Russia and China that threatens to trigger World War III.

In his speech yesterday to military leaders, British Army General Sir Patrick Sanders declared that NATOs war in Ukraine was Britains 1937 moment and that all-out war against Russia must be prepared. The war effort would mean working now with industry partners to make the Army more lethal and more effective, with better equipment in the hands of our soldiers at best speed. We cant be lighting the factory furnaces across the nation on the eve of war; this effort must start now.

War against Russia and China demands class war at home. The Johnson governments determination to smash the rail strike is preparation for an all-out assault on the working class. Amid a raging economic crisis, the ruling class is determined not only to make workers pay for the war in Ukraine but the impact of a continuing pandemic, with workers left to foot the bill for multi-billion bailouts of the corporations and the super-rich.

It has tabled legislation that will create a scab agency workforce to break strikes. Anti-strike laws for essential industries are being drafted that will outlaw industrial action unless minimum service levels are met, effectively ending the right to strike in transport and other essential services. Similar legislation was used this week in Spain to ban strikes by Ryanair pilots, with the company boasting not a single service was halted.

State repression will not end there. An insight into discussions in ruling circles was provided by Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilson who demanded on television Sunday that Johnson should be working with the army and others to put contingency plans in place if the strikes are going to continue, insisting exceptional times call for exceptional measures.

During the 1926 General Strike, Stanley Baldwins government mobilised the entire British military against insurgent strikers. Guard battalions backed by cavalry and armoured trucks occupied docks. Troops occupied bus and transport depots. Battleships were deployed by the Royal Navy to Liverpool, Portsmouth, Hull, Cardiff and other cities, anchored within firing range of barricades. A 50,000-strong Civil Constabulary Reserve force drawn from army reservists and former soldiers was run by the War Office, alongside a reserve police force of 200,000, supporting an army of scabs prepared long in advance.

During the miners strikes that rocked the Heath government in 1972 and 1974, sections of the military backed by the Royal Family laid plans for a military coup, with the army placed on high alert. In 1977, more than 10,000 Army, Navy and RAF personnel were drafted to break the national firemens strike.

During last weeks strikes, the need for unified action was raised on pickets, including calls for a general strike. The main obstacles to realising this are not the hated Tories and their anti-strike legislation, but the Trades Union Congress and Labour Party. The trade union leaders are sitting on a powder keg. Their attacks on greedy employers and threats of future strikes are pitched at placating workers own mounting anger. But in practice, they are suppressing and delaying action, holding strike ballots at staggered intervals while they seek a modus vivendi with the government.

On the eve of the rail strikes the TUC coordinated a letter from the UKs 14 largest unions including Unite, the GMB, Unison and the CWU, begging the government to get round the table with unions and employers. TUC President Frances OGrady urged on Monday that Shapps needs to stop inflaming tensions and negotiate with unions for a fair resolutionone which the Tories have no intention of offering.

Amid what the ruling class has dubbed a summer of discontent, not a single major strike has taken place this week. Rail strikes have been shelved, including on the London Underground where strike mandates are being sat on, even as Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan proceeds with a slash-and-burn agenda against the entire transport system.

The rail strikes have exposed the vicious right-wing character of the Labour Party, epitomised by its leader Sir Keir Starmers threat that any MP visiting picket lines would be disciplinedan edict not even Tony Blair would have dared issue.

Labours Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy spoke for them all. Asked whether he would back strike action by Heathrow ground crew demanding restoration of a 10 percent pay cut imposed during the pandemic, Lammy replied No, no, no! He opposed the strikes, because Im serious about the business of being in Government.

Widespread support for rail workers has produced a wave of popular support for the RMT, considered a militant trade union, and for General Secretary Mick Lynch. His demolition of right-wing media personalities, including Piers Morgan, Kay Burley and Richard Madeley, and of Tory politicians, has been applauded.

But Lynchs political appeal, like that of the TUC, is pitched to the Tory government and employers. Their argument is that Johnsons efforts to replicate Thatchers frontal assault on the National Union of Mineworkers during the 1984-85 strike is socially explosive and unnecessary. Lynchs appeal is that any changes to structures, working practices, or conditions have to be agreed with our union, not imposed. Like its TUC counterparts, the RMT wants to retain its corporatist partnership with the rail bosses and the government.

The union has given the Johnson government more than a year to prepare its offensive against rail workers, participating in the Rail Industry Recovery Group initiated by Shapps along with the rail bosses since May 2021. They signed its Enabling Framework Agreement for massive cost savings centred on redundancies and the gutting of terms and conditions, safety and pensions.

At the RMTs rally on Saturday, Lynch declared his support for Sir Keir Starmer, Thats what weve got. He must win. Weve got to push him and persuade him to get into a position where hes in the front rank with you, all of you. He is trying to channel social discontent behind a pro-war party no less hostile to the working class than the Tories. Rupert Murdochs Times joined the acclaim for Lynch for this reason, ascribing his popularity to his picking reasonableness over revolution.

The working class must intervene independently to assert its control over the dispute.

This means forming rank-and-file committees in every depot and workplace, opposing all attempts to restrict industrial action and expanding the strike to encompass all rail and transport workers and every section of the working class.

Conditions are emerging for a general strike to bring down the Johnson government and bring an end to pay cuts and deepening social inequality. But this means a political fight against the sabotage of the TUC and Labour who are de facto partners with the Tories.

A general strike in Britain will rapidly win the active support of workers across Europe and around the world. The answer of the working class to war, social inequality and the mounting attacks on democratic rights must be the fight for world socialism.

Rail Workers: Tell us what you think. What are conditions like at your work place? All submissions will be kept anonymous.

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Lessons of the British rail strikes - WSWS