On Saturday 1 November an horrific knife attack took place on board an LNER train travelling from Doncaster to London Kings Cross.
The train made an emergency stop at Huntingdon station, where armed police intercepted the attacker. 11 people were admitted to hospital, with an LNER crew member left in a critical condition.
The details of the attack are still emerging at the time of writing. The police are not treating this as a terror attack, and reports indicate that the person who carried out this attack had a history of mental illness, and was already known to authorities.
This crime once again exposes the major compounding issues producing violence and social decay in Britain.
Mental health and social care services are on the brink, after being hollowed out by over a decade of Tory and Labour austerity. When these services are chronically under-staffed and under-funded, is it any surprise that vulnerable individuals slip through the cracks, left to fend for themselves?
On top of this, mental illness is skyrocketing, particularly amongst young people, fuelled by a crumbling education system, decimated youth services, growing poverty, and a lack of opportunities, alongside the impact of racism, abuse, and oppression.
It’s therefore no surprise that we’re seeing an increase in the number of attacks carried out by lone individuals suffering from severe mental illness.
In 2023 for example, we saw the brutal attack carried out by Valdo Calocane, where three innocent people were murdered in Nottingham. Calocane had been failed by mental health teams who persistently downplayed his manic schizophrenic episodes.
Similarly, the perpetrator of last year’s Southport stabbings had been referred to safeguarding services, the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, Childline, local social services, and the police on multiple occasions.
Public safety under attack
Meanwhile, violent assaults, sexual abuse, and anti-social behaviour against rail staff and passengers are at an all-time high.
The Office of Road and Rail’s annual safety report found that from 2024 to 2025 there had been a 7 percent increase in reported incidents. It’s worth noting, however, that many assaults and incidents of abuse go unrecorded, with staff and rail passengers having little confidence in the system.
The Rail, Maritime, and Transport Union (RMT) have been fighting against cuts to staffing levels for years, calling for staff and passenger safety to come before the profits of the train operating companies.
Despite these calls, train operating companies have consistently pushed for driver-only operated trains, effectively making guards and onboard catering teams redundant.
As far back as 2010, for instance, the government published a ‘value for money’ audit by Sir Roy McNulty, who recommended that all trains in the UK should move to driver-only operation in order to realise savings and increase profits.
But on Saturday, it was a member of the onboard crew, Samir Zitouni, who intervened, heroically risking his life to save others.
Train worker hero credited with saving lives in the Huntingdon knife attack named as Samir Zitouni. pic.twitter.com/rFIGBZjfqt
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) November 4, 2025
Without members of staff present, many more passengers could have been injured, or even killed. This alone should serve as proof that these workers are vital to the safety of rail passengers – and not expendable as CEOs believe them to be.
Barbaric system
Shockingly, there have also been reports of the wrong person being tasered by the police – an innocent black man also travelling on the train.
Once the train was evacuated, other passengers heard the man shouting “it’s not me!” right before the police tasered him. Meanwhile, footage shows the attacker climbing a fence attempting to flee the station.
The innocent man was subsequently wrongly arrested, and was only released from police custody 24 hours after the attack took place. This speaks volumes to the institutionalised racism, and general incompetency, that is deeply embedded within the police.
This attack sheds light upon many aspects of social decay driven by austerity and capitalism. Cuts to mental health and social services, private companies attacking rail jobs – all of these things have real, devastating consequences.
The media and right-wing politicians will do everything they can to blame the perpetrator’s race and background, in order to fearmonger and deflect blame from the real, material problems driving social decay. This is nothing but a cynical, divisive distraction.
When profit is placed above people, nobody is safe. The only way we can build a secure society, free from violence and misery, is to overthrow the system dragging us into barbarism.
