If you’d walked around big London rail stations like Victoria before the pandemic, you’d have seen streets like dormitories, lined with people in sleeping bags.

Then, when the state wanted people off the streets during lockdowns, accommodation was miraculously found.

Now, around one in 50 living in London are thought to be homeless. The cross-party group London Councils estimates that nearly 170,000 people in the capital are living in hostels, bedsits, or temporary accommodation, a probable increase of 17,000 in a single year. The group thinks this includes over 83,000 children. Many more people are sofa-surfing or ‘roofless’, ie, sleeping rough.

So much for caring, sharing capitalism.

How exciting that a sign of life may potentially have been discovered on a distant planet, especially after last year’s thrill over phosphine on Venus turned out to be a damp squib. And what a feat for science to be able to spot (or maybe spot) an organic molecule on a planet that’s 120 light years (1.1 million billion miles) away.

Who but a terminal cynic could be indifferent to discovering life in the cosmos, even though there is zero chance of us ever visiting it? Mind you, the cynic might point out a certain irony in that capitalism spends a fortune looking for life on other planets, while simultaneously doing its best to obliterate life on this one.

There’s general disbelief in England right now as over 100 schools have been closed right at the start of the autumn term, because the concrete in them is in danger of collapse. The same is reportedly true of much of the country’s building stock including hospitals.

The Romans knew how to make concrete for buildings that are still standing after 2,000 years, so how come modern concrete buildings are falling down? The answer is because the Romans didn’t use cheap concrete designed only to last 30 years. The stuff is so bad, say structural engineers, it shouldn’t even be called ‘concrete’.

This is typical of the Bodgit & Scarper short-termism of capitalism, where private savings today take priority over public disasters tomorrow.

Shout out to the protesters in Syria, braving a brutal regime for the second week running and demanding Assad’s head on a spike.

They’ve attacked ruling Ba’ath party offices, calling for wholesale political change, and no wonder. The currency has depreciated threefold since last year, and 90% of the population is below the poverty line. ‘People want a fair government, and al-Assad’s regime is incapable of giving his people that…’

Governments oversee the wholesale capitalist exploitation of people and planet, and that can never be called ‘fair’ in any circumstances. But there’s no denying the protesters’ courage. The global revolution for socialism has to start somewhere. Why not in Syria?