Forget about Boris Johnson. That fading television light entertainer is the backbench MP for a previously safe seat that he has single-handedly turned into a marginal. Inexplicably, JCB still felt the need to treat him as a VIP. But no one will be doing that in 12 months' time.
Tom Watson is a better speaker than Jeremy Corbyn (whose Midlands accent comes out when he is riled, I notice), and Michael Gove is a better speaker than Theresa May. When she is riled, as she very often is, then she just becomes even more Theresa May.
Corbyn and May both deserve credit for having given the job of winding up the No Confidence debate to Watson and Gove. In so doing, Corbyn declared that he continued to endorse Watson as his Deputy, while May anointed Gove as her preferred successor, meaning that she intends him to become Prime Minister before the end of the present Parliament, almost certainly without a Leadership Election.
What, then, did our next Prime Minister have to say? What can we expect when 10 Downing Street is occupied by the man who carried out one of the two biggest nationalisations in British history, that of the entire English state schools system, surpassing even the Conservatives' nationalisation of almost all criminal prosecution in England and Wales, even the Conservatives' nationalisation of the courts services there, even the Conservatives' nationalisation of much or most of criminal defence there, and even the Conservatives' nationalisation of the setting of business rates, while ranking even with New Labour's nationalisation of planning and compulsory purchase?
The first three of those eventually and inevitably necessitated the abolition of the office of Lord Chancellor as it had previously existed, although of course the title and the costume were retained, since what had been turned into one of Whitehall's biggest spending Departments needed a Secretary of State drawn from, and accountable to, the House of Commons. In time, that Secretary of State came to be Michael Gove.
So, as he stands on the threshold of the Premiership, what did Gove have to say? That he endorses the present Prime Minister's Blairite domestic policy agenda shorn of her previous Milibandism, as articulated in her own speech at the start of the debate. And that he is also a Blairite in foreign policy, in that he remains exactly the neocon Crazy that he was 15 years ago. Most of those have at least partially learned their lesson by now. But not Gove.
He railed that Jeremy Corbyn would leave Britain with "no Army", but the present Government is already doing a pretty good job of bringing about that state of affairs. Gove indulged in the Russia-baiting that is the mark of an irreconcilable supporter of Hillary Clinton. Everyone has always talked to the IRA, whether or not they have admitted it. The DUP has been doing little else for many years, and the Queen has them IRA to stay overnight. Everyone in the field talks to Hamas all the time. If Hezbollah were not in the Government of Lebanon, then there would be no Government of Lebanon, and there is a Government of Lebanon.
The IRA long ago gave up killing people in Britain, while Hamas and Hezbollah, like any political faction from Latin America, have never done so. By the starkest of contrasts, this Government maintains the closest possible relations with Saudi Arabia, the agents of which are one of this country's two main internal security threats, while Gove also has longstanding ties to the Far Right world of Thomas Mair, no lone wolf he, which is the other such threat, and which alone has murdered a sitting Member of Parliament in the last 29 years and counting.
Wreath-laying is an interesting one, if you really want to go as far back as Black September. If you were old enough to vote in 1972, then you are now at least 65. But in May 1985, Ronald Reagan laid a wreath at the Waffen SS cemetery in Bitburg. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush laid wreaths at Confederate monuments every year that they were the Governors of Arkansas and Texas respectively, and they both sent Presidential wreaths to the Confederate Memorial at Arlington every Confederate Memorial Day. Hell, even Barack Obama did that, although he also sent one to the African American Civil War Memorial. The Queen laid a wreath to the IRA when she went to Dublin. There is no point trying to suggest that it was somehow "a different IRA". A what?
But when Prince William recently stayed at the King David Hotel, then he made no recognition of its history. Just as there is no monument to those, mostly young conscripts, who fell in and for the British Mandate of Palestine. Just as no one ever mentions the USS Liberty. And just as no one ever mentions Israel's arming of Argentina during the Falklands War, an explicit act of anti-British revenge by Menachem Begin. Gove is a very strong supporter of Israel, and an outspoken proponent of the view that all criticism of it is by definition anti-Semitic. As is May, if only because, unlike Gove, she neither knows nor cares anything about foreign policy; for a Geography graduate, she is stunningly uninterested in the wider world. And as are most Labour MPs, who are also fanatical, if well-compensated, supporters of Saudi Arabia.
But all is not lost. If Theresa May so awful, then why is Jeremy Corbyn not 10 or 20 points ahead? Well, if Jeremy Corbyn is so awful, then why is Theresa May not 10 or 20 points ahead? It has nothing to do with who leads either party that all polls have pointed to a hung Parliament since the day that the present one was elected. The polity of England and Wales is becoming, if it has not already become, pillarised to an extent that recalls Northern Ireland or Lebanon. The same is true, but in a different way, of the polity of Scotland. Therefore, a General Election across the three polities of England and Wales, of Scotland, and of Northern Ireland, is not merely likely to produce a hung Parliament. It is bound to do so. Such an outcome is inevitable.
No one has become Prime Minister on the back of having just won an overall majority since 1997, 22 years ago. No party has won an overall majority within the law since 2005, 14 years ago; in 2015, the prosecution service that the Conservatives had nationalised decided not to prosecute that party for criminality that it openly admitted then and which it openly admits now. Within the law, the Conservative Party has not won an overall majority since 1992, a whopping 27 years ago. This side of Scottish independence, British withdrawal from Northern Ireland, and up to a dozen other improbable or impossible things besides, to all of which the electoral system itself is immaterial, no party that did not simply cheat could possibly win an overall majority for many decades to come.
Another hung Parliament is coming, then, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. It has become a local commonplace that I am on 30-30-30 with Labour and the Conservatives here at North West Durham, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post. I will stand for this seat, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.
Wreath-laying is an interesting one, if you really want to go as far back as Black September. If you were old enough to vote in 1972, then you are now at least 65. But in May 1985, Ronald Reagan laid a wreath at the Waffen SS cemetery in Bitburg. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush laid wreaths at Confederate monuments every year that they were the Governors of Arkansas and Texas respectively, and they both sent Presidential wreaths to the Confederate Memorial at Arlington every Confederate Memorial Day. Hell, even Barack Obama did that, although he also sent one to the African American Civil War Memorial. The Queen laid a wreath to the IRA when she went to Dublin. There is no point trying to suggest that it was somehow "a different IRA". A what?
But when Prince William recently stayed at the King David Hotel, then he made no recognition of its history. Just as there is no monument to those, mostly young conscripts, who fell in and for the British Mandate of Palestine. Just as no one ever mentions the USS Liberty. And just as no one ever mentions Israel's arming of Argentina during the Falklands War, an explicit act of anti-British revenge by Menachem Begin. Gove is a very strong supporter of Israel, and an outspoken proponent of the view that all criticism of it is by definition anti-Semitic. As is May, if only because, unlike Gove, she neither knows nor cares anything about foreign policy; for a Geography graduate, she is stunningly uninterested in the wider world. And as are most Labour MPs, who are also fanatical, if well-compensated, supporters of Saudi Arabia.
But all is not lost. If Theresa May so awful, then why is Jeremy Corbyn not 10 or 20 points ahead? Well, if Jeremy Corbyn is so awful, then why is Theresa May not 10 or 20 points ahead? It has nothing to do with who leads either party that all polls have pointed to a hung Parliament since the day that the present one was elected. The polity of England and Wales is becoming, if it has not already become, pillarised to an extent that recalls Northern Ireland or Lebanon. The same is true, but in a different way, of the polity of Scotland. Therefore, a General Election across the three polities of England and Wales, of Scotland, and of Northern Ireland, is not merely likely to produce a hung Parliament. It is bound to do so. Such an outcome is inevitable.
No one has become Prime Minister on the back of having just won an overall majority since 1997, 22 years ago. No party has won an overall majority within the law since 2005, 14 years ago; in 2015, the prosecution service that the Conservatives had nationalised decided not to prosecute that party for criminality that it openly admitted then and which it openly admits now. Within the law, the Conservative Party has not won an overall majority since 1992, a whopping 27 years ago. This side of Scottish independence, British withdrawal from Northern Ireland, and up to a dozen other improbable or impossible things besides, to all of which the electoral system itself is immaterial, no party that did not simply cheat could possibly win an overall majority for many decades to come.
Another hung Parliament is coming, then, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. It has become a local commonplace that I am on 30-30-30 with Labour and the Conservatives here at North West Durham, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post. I will stand for this seat, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.
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