The prime minister’s ambitions might be ambiguous, but unlike the Conservative leader, he is following voters and the facts
British politics is still polarised around Brexit, although 10 years on from the referendum, the terms of debate are very different. Or they should be. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has moved discussions of European solidarity from the realm of abstraction to a matter of urgent defence partnership. Donald Trump’s presidency in the US, marked by scorn for European democracies and indulgence of Vladimir Putin, has undermined confidence that Britain can rely on any “special relationship” with Washington.
Under these circumstances, it would be absurd to deny that a reappraisal of Brexit is in order. The prime minister acknowledged this in his speech at the Labour party conference last month, calling for a national conversation about the future relationship with every option, including rejoining, on the table. The Eurosceptic opposition are having none of it. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, accuses the government of stirring division by raising the European question. She told MPs this week that Labour should thank the Tories for the Brexit deal they negotiated.
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© Photograph: House of Commons/PA
© Photograph: House of Commons/PA
© Photograph: House of Commons/PA
Editorial: The risks taken by the chancellor to provide short-term ‘breathing space’ at the expense of prudence for the long term have been exposed
© AP
Editorial: The risks taken by the chancellor to provide short-term ‘breathing space’ at the expense of prudence for the long term have been exposed
© AP
LAHORE is choking again, and the government’s answer is to send more machines onto its streets. On Wednesday, its air quality index reached 296, putting children, outdoor workers, and the elderly at particular risk.
Yet Punjab plans to acquire 30 more truck-mounted fog cannons. These can suppress road dust locally, but their ability to reduce the fine particles most harmful to health remains questionable. Authorities must explain what the existing fleet has achieved in terms of measurable pollution reduction before spending more public money.
Last year, disruptions to Punjab’s air monitoring network raised suspicions that pollution levels were being hidden; officials cited technical faults. Whether equipment is recording pollution or spraying water, public confidence depends on transparent data and independent scrutiny. A temporary improvement at a pollution hotspot, or near a monitoring station, cannot prove that the city’s air is becoming safer.
Monitoring should expose pollution. Punjab must publish continuous readings and independent assessments of its interventions. It should also fund research into the relative contributions of traffic, industry, construction, and crop burning, how these change with the seasons, and which measures actually reduce exposure.
That scientific effort must extend beyond the border. Punjab officials say easterly winds have been bringing polluted air from India into Lahore. But this does not absolve Pakistan of responsibility for its own emissions. The air over the two Punjabs is shared, and both populations suffer when political hostility obstructs cooperation.
Calls for joint action are not new. Cooperation was proposed with Indian Punjab in 2017 and 2024. Yet neither initiative led to sustained cooperation. Environmental diplomacy with New Delhi should be prioritised, despite wider tensions. Both sides could begin by exchanging verified air-quality and weather data, jointly studying the movement of pollutants and developing common approaches to agricultural burning and industrial emissions. Universities and scientific institutions could help build a shared evidence base.
At home, dedicated research funding, stronger monitoring, and open evaluation of anti-smog spending are essential. Enforcement must continue, but decisions should follow evidence, not the visibility of machinery on city roads. Until the air itself improves, no amount of official activity can be called progress.
Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2026
THE PPP appears quite perturbed over the fact that the creation of new provinces or administrative units continues to be discussed. Speaking at an event in Karachi on Tuesday, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari asserted that no one outside Sindh could decide its future. “So we should now put a full stop to this conversation as well.”
The Bhutto scion said the people of Sindh and their elected representatives had “given their verdict” on this matter, ostensibly referring to a Sindh Assembly resolution in early September.
Solely on principle, his position cannot be faulted. The Constitution does lay out a clear process for decisions of this sort, and it gives the elected assembly of each affected province a final say on the matter. Of course, there are public representatives from the same province, albeit from other parties, who disagree with the PPP chairperson’s view. However, that disagreement alone cannot be used to override a defined legal process.
Unfortunately, as recent events in KP have shown, the public’s mandate and verdicts delivered through the ballot box can be brushed aside if the centre is sufficiently motivated. For KP, its decisions are now being made not by its elected representatives, but by administrators handpicked by Islamabad.
It can be argued that this is, perhaps, not a fair comparison, but Mr Bhutto-Zardari should still realise that his position may not hold as much force as he thinks it does, and it will, therefore, not be as easy to bury this agenda as he would like. There are many voices within the federal government’s ruling coalition that are actively advocating for the division of all provinces into more ‘manageable’ units.
As was seen in KP, such voices can be amplified to find causa proxima, the trigger for an intervention, if it comes to that. Therefore, a better course of action would be to address governance grievances proactively.
The primary reason for governance failure in Pakistan is not the geographical size of the existing provinces but the reluctance of provincial capitals to empower local bodies. Few can convincingly argue that the local government system, as it exists today, is capable of positive change at the grassroots level.
At the same time, simply creating more provinces will only add heavy, expensive layers of provincial bureaucracy at a time when Pakistan can ill afford them. There are also steep social costs to consider, as pushing forward without public validation could trigger ethnic strife.
Therefore, empowered local bodies remain the best answer to all those issues which seem to warrant a fracturing of the provinces in the eyes of those demanding an administrative restructuring. The decrepit LG system needs to be revitalised, with resources invested in it judiciously. Doing so can improve service delivery at the neighbourhood level in a meaningful way.
Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2026
Un AVE chocó ayer cerca de Urda (Toledo) con un convoy de Iryo que estaba detenido en la vía. Cayeron varios vagones por un terraplén. En ambos trenes viajaban más de 540 personas. El balance de la tragedia era ayer de 68 muertos y más de medio centenar de hospitalizados. Según las primeras informaciones sobre las causas, dadas por el ministro Óscar Puente, falló en un tramo de vías un sistema automático de señalización de seguridad y varios trenes quedaron parados; desde el centro de control, un operario dijo al AVE que reprendiera la marcha normalmente, cuando no debía ser así, y unos kilómetros más adelante el tren embistió por detrás a un Iryio que aún seguía parado en la vía.
Trascurridos nueve meses desde la tragedia de Adamuz, todavía no se han hecho públicas las conclusiones sobre las causas que provocaron el descarrilamiento de uno de los convoyes y la posterior colisión con otro tren, pero, ayer, cinco horas después de una nueva tragedia sucedida, además, en la misma vía, el ministro de Transportes, Óscar Puente, se consideraba autorizado para señalar un culpable, uno de los trabajadores del centro de control de Atocha, con la clara intención de que el «fallo humano» le exonere de su responsabilidad directa, como máxima autoridad en la gestión de la infraestructura ferroviaria. No debe ser así, máxime cuando hablamos de un ministro que se permitía hace apenas una semana bromear en un programa de humor sobre los accidentes de trenes, porque ya no nos hallamos ante un hecho excepcional, sino ante la confirmación de los peores temores. La confirmación de que el déficit de mantenimiento de la red de Alta Velocidad, reflejado en la continúa sucesión de averías en los convoyes, catenaria, agujas y el propio carril, que se venían traduciendo en retrasos y suspensión de servicios, ha llegado a un punto de no retorno, que es el de la desconfianza del usuario en su propia seguridad. La tragedia de Urda no puede disociarse de la avería general de los sistemas de seguridad y señalización que habían paralizado la circulación en la vía Madrid-Sevilla, con la detención de seis trenes, ni de la falta de respuesta posterior del sistema anticolisión que debería haber funcionado en el AVE que chocó por alcance con el Iryo. Con toda seguridad, y a expensas del resultado de la investigación oficial, más que de un fallo humano deberíamos hablar de un «error inducido» por el deterioro de las condiciones de funcionamiento de la red. En cualquier caso, creemos que ha llegado la hora de asumir las responsabilidades políticas por parte de un gobierno como el actual, con un presidente, Pedro Sánchez, que nunca ha reclamado cuentas por sus actos a sus subordinados, tal vez, para no tener que asumir las suyas propias, en lugar de montar el enésimo relato exculpatorio, cada vez peor aceptado por la opinión pública. Entre otras razones, porque hasta el propio Ejecutivo, conocido por su difícil relación con la verdad, entiende que a sus trucos de prestidigitación se les ve el cartón y ha llegado al final abrupto de la legislatura sin más triunfos en la manga. Podríamos citar muchos ejemplos del uso de la propaganda como parapeto de la incompetencia gubernamental, pero vamos solo a referirnos a ese discurso que sitúa parte de la culpa de lo sucedido en la liberación comercial de los servicios del AVE, con la multiplicación del número de convoyes que circulan por las vías, cuando la realidad, que es tozuda, nos dice que España tiene una de las redes ferroviarias menos utilizadas del mundo, con 35 trenes diarios por cada kilómetro de red, mientras que en Alemania circulan 79 trenes, en Japón los hacen 97, y la media europea es de 55. No. Se acerca mucho más a la verdad la denuncia de la falta de mantenimiento integral de la red que, no es posible obviarlo, está directamente gestionada por dos organismos oficiales, Adif y la Agencia Estatal de Seguridad Ferroviaria, que dependen directa y jerárquicamente del Ministerio de Transportes, que tiene entre sus funciones marcar las prioridades presupuestarias. Por último, pero a nuestro juicio no menos importante, advertir de que el deseable rechazo al uso torticero de una terrible tragedia que se ha llevado la vida de, al menos, 68 personas, y causado graves lesiones a más de un centenar, más en medio de una campaña electoral, no anula el derecho de los ciudadanos a exigir explicaciones convincentes a quienes gestionan los servicios públicos ni exime al Gobierno de su responsabilidad. Porque, en el fondo, la cuestión, lo que hay que dilucidar, es si se ha priorizado mantener la operatividad del AVE a costa de la seguridad, lo que son palabras mayores y conducen directamente a los tribunales.
© EUROPAPRESS
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