Here First

Israel has rejected the ceasefire deal that Hamas has accepted, and it is defying the United States over Rafah. Since you read it here first that there would be what was now the universally predicted or threatened hung Parliament, so you are now reading it here first that when that hung Parliament came, then every stop would be pulled out to form a coalition between the two parties that unconditionally supported Israel, including with British arms.

Those are the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, which have no political difference, and which are socially and professionally interchangeable at Westminster level, facts that are inextricably bound up with each other. Israel is only a small part of why those who want this coalition do so, and do so very badly, although it is not as if they would have any difficulty creating it. For all ideological and most practical purposes, it already exists.

Ignore the purely ritual opening line of today's Times leader. The article's point is that it welcomes "Labour's return to the political mainstream", defined simply as the present Government. Thus is gazetted the fact that the deal is done. The fix is in. The stocks are sold, the Press is squared, the middle class is quite prepared.

Coalitions between Labour and the Conservatives have always been routine in local government. They have been of variable quality, but one of them did secure the Leadership of Derby City Council for Chris Williamson. This would not be like that. But should we suffer the Red-Blue Cabinet the complete membership list of which has no doubt already been circulated, then we would have the opportunity to test the uniparty to destruction. It would have nowhere to hide.

No one's mind has ever been changed by John Swinney. Instead, accept no imitations. 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. 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, if not immediately, then after the glorious collapse of the Grand Coalition. 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.