Shred the free market dogma

But glaringly absent from the reactionary lips of baronet-in-waiting George Osborne and his like is any mention of the reams of rules and regulations forcing privatisation and phoney competition onto an unwilling British public.

None more so than our postal service.

The EU postal directive that dictates the break-up of the universal service is, like the privatisation of railways, free market dogma of the worst kind.

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Just as private firms leech from subsidies to manage our rickety rail network and rake in profits, bogus competition in the postal sector has diverted cash from the public purse into shareholders' coffers.

So-called "competitors" have to use Royal Mail postal workers to actually deliver their mail. Without them they wouldn't exist.

And these firms exist to cream off the most profitable bits of the service while leaving the unprofitable bits to the public sector.

What a sham.

News that postal workers could hit back by refusing to distribute the seeds of their own destruction is long overdue and should be congratulated.

On to the day when this particularly pernicious bit of free market red tape is shredded.

End Israel's impunity

It's two important United Nations votes in a week for the Middle East.

Days after the general assembly overwhelmingly backed the long overdue upgrading of Palestine - with some dishonourable abstentions - it again passes a symbolic vote of global significance.

Israel's refusal to open its widely acknowledged illegal nuclear weapons programme to UN inspection is the elephant in the room whenever the hypocrites in Washington, which voted against today's resolution to urge Tel Aviv to do so "without further delay," talk about Iran's alleged nuclear weapons programme.

Tehran's development of nuclear-powered energy is legal under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which it is a signatory.

Contrast this to Israel, a strategic US ally that maintains an arsenal rumoured to number well over 100 nuclear warheads.

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We know they exist. The programme was exposed to the world by whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, who has paid the price ever since through years in solitary confinement and virtual house arrest in east Jerusalem to this day. The Israeli establishment has a long and vengeful memory.

They display an equal measure of arrogance by refusing to sign up to the nuclear NPT, a lawless stance enabled by the two-faced US which refuses to condemn the weapons' existence while waging relentless propaganda campaigns against states that do not fit in with its strategic goals.

The UN general assembly, including Britain, overwhelmingly supported today's resolution. Only Canada and the usual tiny, US-backed Pacific states voted in favour of Israel's right to flout international law.

But as long as Washington wields its veto in the UN security council the prospect of a meaningful outcome on the issue will remain out of reach.

So too will attempts to secure a peaceful, nuclear-free future for this tumultuous region.