Tie Breaker

This weekend brings another of the occasional opportunities for the 20 Points Ahead morons to wet themselves with glee that they were merely tied with the worst Government ever, a rating that would translate into a comfortable Conservative overall majority.

The Labour Right had its chance. No one questions talk of "left behind" areas due to "40 years of Thatcherism", because it is such a statement of the obvious. The last Labour Government enjoyed healthy majorities all three times, and it enjoyed enormous majorities on the first two occasions. It could have done whatever it pleased. Unfortunately, it did.

The whirlwind was reaped when places that had been unable to detect any change of government from the Budget of December 1976 onwards swung the 2016 referendum for Leave, put an anti-austerity and pro-Brexit party on the cusp of power in 2017 (when only its own treacherous staff scuppered its chances), and then gave an overall majority of 80 to the other side after the betrayal of Brexit by the man who is now Leader of the Labour Party.

So it is all about us now. Shotley Bridge looks forward to the Hilary Armstrong Memorial Hospital, and Richard Holden looks forward to a greatly increased majority, even though no one who defended the wider record of Boris Johnson would truly deserve election any more than would anyone who even pretended to believe that Keir Starmer ought to become Prime Minister.

But both of those points do stand. Therefore, in each constituency in 2024, there should be one candidate, of any party or none, who subscribed to this and this. The complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that would publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.