Take The Win

There are military personnel in practically every embassy in the world. They are still protected by the Vienna Convention. But Israel's ability to kill exactly the right Iranian military personnel in Damascus is matched by Iran's ability to hit the Ramon airbase from which that attack had been launched, yet kill or injure no one, and thus be able to say that no one had died or even been hurt. They are both that good, so a war between them could go on for a horribly long time.

The nearest thing to a glimmer of hope would be, as we saw on Saturday night and Sunday morning, Israel's dependence on the Western allies that it has been rather disrespecting of late and not for the first time, and on those allies' Arab allies, which risk being overthrown for this. Only the withdrawal of such support might end this war. Such withdrawal must therefore stop it from starting.

Iran has killed or injured no one in retaliation for the targeted killing of eight of it citizens on its diplomatic premises in a third country. Israel ought to seize with both hands Iran's astonishing willingness to leave the matter there. Few, if any, European countries would be quite so magnanimous towards anywhere apart from Israel. The United States certainly would not be, again except towards Israel.

Only Kay Burley has asked David Cameron "What would Britain do if a hostile nation flattened one of our consulates?", because only she may. It is not as if he is answerable to the House of Commons. There, Rishi Sunak never mentioned that flattening, Keir Starmer never invited him to, and when George Galloway did, then Sunak bizarrely denied any connection between that and the Iranian action that he falsely accused George of having failed to condemn.

But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Keir Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

I have no plan to join the Workers Party of Britain, although nor would I expect to stand against it. If, however, it did not contest North Durham, then I would. To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not. We have made a start.