Economical, With The Truth

Of course the economy is shrinking like a woolly jumper on a boil wash. The mere suggestion of the mini-Budget crashed the economy, but Labour pretended to oppose only one measure in it, the one that Liz Truss had not included in her prospectus to Conservative Party members, while actively supporting all of the others. Look what those proposals did even without being enacted. Yet had they ever been put to a Commons Division, then the Labour Whip would have been to abstain, and even then only because of the abolition of the 45p rate of income tax, a pretended opposition that was purely opportunistic.

This Government presupposes the ideology that underlay the mini-Budget, so here we are. Reform UK is calling for the renationalisation of Thames Water, so the Government is being outflanked on the left by Nigel Farage. The Royal Mail has been fined £10.5 million for its late deliveries, including of a quarter of first class post. Daniel Kretinsky has promised to keep its headquarters and tax residency in the United Kingdom only for the next five years, and to have no compulsory redundancies only until 2025, which is two weeks on Wednesday. Over to Reform to call for the renationalisation of that, too.

The Royal Mail was privatised by the Liberal Democrats. How easily most people have forgotten the Coalition. In any order that did not put Reform on top, although that may change very soon, the polls consistently show Labour, the Conservatives and Reform practically tied on a share that would have led to the removal of any previous Labour or Conservative Leader. Fed into the grinder, and while some of those results would still leave a greatly increased Reform as only the fourth party in terms of seats, all of them would deliver not only a hung Parliament, but one in which, as the talking heads would have it, "neither Coalition" would be possible. By that, they mean, on one side, the Conservatives, Reform, and such Northern Irish Unionists as may be necessary to make up the numbers, and, on the other side, everybody else. Including the more pro-austerity and pro-war party to the last Coalition, the party that privatised the Royal Mail, and the only main party no member of which voted against the war in Libya.

Five 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 Ed 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.

It is for having supported the invasion of Libya that Ed Miliband should apologise. He was right about Syria. Al-Qaeda has taken Damascus. It will be allowed to keep as much of Syria as Israel did not yet want. Lyse Doucet did not misspeak. Israel is occupying a large chunk of Syria, which it is going to clear and settle. It is entirely open about this, as it is about being at war with Ireland, routinely bombing the Irish Army personnel, as such, who are serving as UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, while Irish nationals remain specifically excluded from the list of those allowed to leave Gaza, the only European nationality to be so treated. In its last weeks of mattering, what has the American Democratic Party to say about that? What has the governing Australian Labor Party to say? What has the governing British Labour Party to say? Meanwhile, Candace Owens has thrown down the gauntlet within the Trump coalition by interviewing a USS Liberty veteran. Never mind her. Are you calling him a liar? America First, you say?

For all that her husband has been replaced with something even worse, the indictment of Asma al-Assad by the International Criminal Court would at least establish that a British citizen could be so. Names associated with Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya spring most obviously to mind, as well they should. But let us not forget those who were, right now, arming the Israeli genocide of Gaza, devastation of the West Bank, bombardment of Lebanon, and invasion and annexation of much of Syria, with the RAF providing the lion's share of Israeli reconnaissance flights, free of charge to the Israelis. David Lammy's best defence might be that no one told him anything, mostly or entirely because he never thought to ask. After all, he retains Ben Judah as his special adviser despite himself being the the father of three mixed-race children who were presumably born in London and who certainly live there. Keir Starmer, on the other hand, would have no conceivable excuse. In bringing him before the ICC, then the Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian people would act for the British people, who have sent Freezing This Christmas to Number One. Let's keep it there.