On Manoeuvres

The 82 votes against the 10pm curfew are an interesting spread. The Liberal Democrats are clearly positioning on this. And both in the governing party and in the Official Opposition, all of the factions that are not the Leadership are on manoeuvres.

I am glad that Labour voted last night to protect food standards. But I am left wondering, if the protection of the farming interest is not the irreducible core of Toryism, then what in the world possibly could be? And who or what are these Conservative backbench libertarians, even including tonight's curfew rebels, if they will not vote against both the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, and the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill?

Labour ought to be voting against both of those. But it has instead decided to oppose at Third Reading, when its preferred amendments will not have been adopted, only the one that would decriminalise fairly rare acts abroad, rather than the one that would give an astonishing array of British public bodies the power to authorise unlimited criminal activity against trade unionists, justice campaigners, peace activists, and others, right here at home.

The signatories to this include the General Secretaries of 14 trade unions, six of which are affiliated to the Labour Party. Each of those unions should reduce its funding by the proportion of Labour MPs who had failed to vote against the legalisation of the murder of that union's members by the State. Anyone who might fall back on the Human Rights Act needs to consider its demonstrable uselessness against the assaults on civil liberties by the Government that introduced it, and against the austerity programme's continuation of that Government's persecution of the poor, the sick and the disabled.

In each constituency in 2024, there should be one candidate, of any party or none, who subscribed to this and this. The complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that would publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.