A Profound Sense of Urgency

The lectern is not supposed to bear the arms when the Prime Minister is speaking as the Leader of a political party. Was Rishi Sunak's bonkers speech above party politics? Sadly, for all its attacks on Keir Starmer, it substantially was, at least according to the Big Two.

Nearly 50 years of what is called Thatcherism, although in fact it began with the Labour Budget of December 1976, have already made the Chinese the owners of all manner of strategically vital aspects of British life. Be it right or wrong in itself, Russia's territorial claim to Kharkiv or Bakhmut has no bearing on Kensington or Barrhead. Iranians can have an inherited fear of British plots against Iran, but what would they even want with Britain itself? It is only barely a joke that North Korea has never heard of us. No, of course Jeremy Corbyn did not want to abolish the Army. And alas, both of his General Election manifestos did indeed promise to keep British military personnel subject to officers who were themselves answerable to Viktor Orbán and to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

One could go on, yet all of this barminess, including the lies about Corbyn, is not only accepted by the Official Opposition, it is definitive of it as a political project. Policy Exchange itself was founded, and long directed, by Nick Boles, once a Minister under David Cameron, and now the guru of Rachel Reeves. 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 Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and 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. But if 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. But there does need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not. We have made a start.