At This Rate

At this rate, just as Britain will be the last country apart from Israel that did not recognise Palestine, so Britain will be the last country that was still arming Israel. On both issues, David Cameron's and Andrew Mitchell's instincts are at least broadly the other way. But look what they face as an Official Opposition.

Nor does that Opposition advocate the restoration of democratic political control of monetary policy. On the contrary, it lionises the Government that, as its first act and without a manifesto commitment, surrendered that control as no Conservative Government had ever done. At this rate, indeed.

As soon as it became obvious that most people's instincts were correct and there was going to be a hung Parliament, then the most Establishment polling firm of the lot announced a 30-point Labour lead that would have left only 13 Conservative seats, notably six of them in Scotland, which where it is Tory, is very, very, very Tory, indeed. Do you believe this nonsense? Nor should you.

And notice the pushing of Reform UK, which has never won a Commons seat, and which last week picked up all of two council seats, both on the same authority. What a thing it is to be the funny uncles of the public school media. There must not be embarrassment at Christmas or at funerals. All that remains for Reform is for the directors of that limited company to do their fiduciary duty and take whatever money the Conservatives' own very rich uncles offered it to save face by standing down only in Conservative seats, and then to wind up immediately after having won none of the others.

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, which the polling companies ought to be pushing, 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.