Aamer’s release long overdue

THIS paper welcomes the news that Shaker Aamer will be released from the US’s Guantanamo Bay torture chamber with utter joy, relief and gratitude.

Gratitude not for the disgraceful officials who are only now, after 13 interminable years, releasing this innocent man to his family, but gratitude for all the people who have demanded Shaker’s release and ensured that he could never be forgotten.

There are far too many to name, so many acts taken by people who see the essential injustice in a person being banged up for no reason and subjected to the most inhumane treatment. But a specific mention is very much deserved by the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign for its tireless work.

Our fight must continue, however, for the dozens still locked away in the US gulag — the only threat they pose is to US and British claims to be law-abiding governments with any respect for human dignity.

HS2 is on the wrong track

CHANCELLOR George Osborne has spent much of his time in the Far East this week touting for Chinese involvement in HS2.

Like the rail unions, the Morning Star has in principle welcomed plans to construct high-speed railway lines from London to Birmingham and thence to Manchester and Leeds. But our support is qualified.

We have urged the government to ensure that everything reasonable is done to minimise the environmental damage and compensate victims of the considerable economic and social disruption that inevitably arises from projects of this size.

We believe that the HS2 scheme should not proceed at the expense of other important improvements to the existing railway network. Initial plans should include an extension to Scotland and all new and upgraded HS2 infrastructure should remain in public ownership.

On all four counts, the approach taken by this Tory government and the last one is placing HS2 and its support in jeopardy.

The High Court has ruled that the initial property compensation scheme for compulsory purchase was “so unfair as to be unlawful.”

As the Chancellor and Prime Minister David Cameron promise to press ahead with phase one of HS2, funded entirely by £12 billion of public money, Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has already announced that far less costly electrification schemes on the Manchester-York and York-Sheffield lines are being “paused.”

The much-needed electrification of the Great Western mainline between London and Swansea is already behind schedule and the whole £38bn five-year Network Rail investment programme must now be in doubt.

This is all a very different story from the pledges made by the Tories in the run-up to the May 6 general election.

Now George Osborne is hoping not only that Chinese companies will bid for HS2 phase one (London-Birmingham) contracts, but that Chinese capital will help fund some of his “northern powerhouse” projects.

He wants to see Chinese technology building the HS2 lines. Presumably, Osborne has in mind the potential contribution that could be made by the likes of the China Railway Group Ltd, the China Railway Construction Corporation Ltd and their subsidiaries. Their operations are worldwide, building railways in the US as well as in Africa and the Middle East.

The irony for our Chancellor, a champion of privatisation, is that these are majority state-owned enterprises, albeit with minority private shareholdings.

It is China’s engineering and construction companies that can look forward most to profitable contracts and investments in Britain’s railway system. They will join the German, French, Dutch and Belgian state-owned enterprises that occupy a growing proportion of our “privatised” rail industry.

They will also happily snap up HS2 Ltd should the Tories get away with privatising it after its £43bn budget has been spent.

The alternative is, as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn proposes, to take the whole of Britain’s railway system back into British public ownership.