Third Post, The Past

In the battle for third place in the popular vote, Ed Davey is being sold and bought as the friendly neighbour or cuddly uncle of people just like the subpostmasters. This rehabilitation is the worst case yet of the Liberal Democrats' whitewash of the Coalition.

Four and a half years ago, I listened to the Lib Dem candidate for North West Durham bang on for several minutes about the Bedroom Tax. He never spoke to me again after I pointed out that his party had been in government at the time. Both parties to the Coalition were and are to blame for everything that it did, from that, to the war in Libya, to the Post Office scandal, for which Davey was the Minister responsible, to the privatisation of the Royal Mail, which was done by Vince Cable. Oh, the comments that I used to have to reject when I mentioned that the Post Office had had to be cut out of the Royal Mail in 2011 so that the Royal Mail could be privatised, because the City had known, even then, about Horizon. On 24 May, that was confirmed.

The Lib Dems' rival for the prized bronze medal is Reform UK. Nigel Farage has endorsed Sammy Wilson and Ian Paisley, even though Jim Allister of Traditional Unionist Voice has hitherto been allowed to use the Reform logo on his material as a challenger for Paisley's seat. Reform always should have been made to explain to voters in England, Scotland and Wales the nature of its partner, TUV. Since apparently some version of that partnership still exists, it should now be made to explain both that and, most obviously, the role of Wilson in chairing the founding rally of Ulster Resistance, which has never disbanded or disarmed in any way, nor even declared a ceasefire.

Those arms were procured from apartheid South Africa by the Paris Three, one of whom was Noel Little, the father of Emma Little-Pengelly. Now the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, a position with powers equal to those of the First Minister, Little-Pengelly was the MP for Belfast South from 2017 to 2019. She owed her election, for a somewhat improbable seat, to the concerted efforts of the local Loyalist paramilitary organisations, to whom she extended barely coded thanks in her acceptance speech. Throughout her time in Parliament, the Government had an overall majority of one. Throughout that time, she was that majority. Countries are sanctioned for less. These questions are not new. Whatever else may be said of First Past the Post, and the weakness of the arguments on the other side means that the case for change has not been made, it is no cordon sanitaire against the Far Right, including the terrorist Far Right.