Scrutiny Chairs

Laura Kuenssberg will be interviewing Zack Polanski. I am no Green, but they are now tied with Labour in the polls, or even a point ahead although of course that is a statistical tie, while having more members than the Conservative Party. Yet if anything they have been going backwards in local elections, the voters in which are the people most likely to vote in General Elections. All of this cries out for scrutiny.

The Liberal Democrats were barely scrutinised even during the five years when they were in the Cabinet. They now have far more MPs than they had then, they lead more councils than the Conservatives do, and on Thursday they had a particularly good set of local by-elections, for which only we hardcore voters turn out, winning seven out of 10, and making gains from all three of Labour, the Conservatives and the Greens, including all six seats that were up in Surrey, one of nine authorities to which elections are set to be "postponed" for a second year, clearly due to more than fear of Reform UK. Why should the five million and more people affected continue to pay Council Tax?

Since the Lib Dems demonstrably do not need publicity, then they need scrutiny. For example, having stood firm for a ceasefire in Gaza and for recognition of Palestine, they have now undermined the operational independence of the Police by joining in the demand that, against the recommendation even of Interpol, the Maccabi Tel Aviv racists who had rioted in Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Poland and the Netherlands be welcomed, not even to the Birmingham that they would always have been free to visit, but to a particular football match, on the grounds that keeping them away would be anti-Semitic?

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has called his fans onto the streets of Birmingham in a patriotic display of support for a foreign team against a British one. Also wearing its shirt, Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch, Nigel Farage and Ed Davey should march behind him, their acknowledged Leader, alongside Andrew Fox, a paid Israeli agent who created a fake Jewish Aston Villa fanclub, named himself as its President even though he was not Jewish, and was taken entirely at face value by the media. Ayoub Khan was a Lib Dem until last year. Expect an awful lot more people to leave that party now. Its representatives need to be asked about that. Among other things. Meanwhile, on 6 November, the Independent Alliance and other true patriots should turn up in support of Aston Villa and of the Police.