Friday 2 December 2022

Locking Down To Open Up

You read it here first. There is going to be a lockdown to end the strikes. There is always some sort of public health crisis in winter, and this winter's will be used as the pretext to lock down. Under that cover, the disputes will be settled by a Government that, for all the knockabout at Prime Minister's Questions, was far more open to negotiation than the Opposition was. The cost will hardly be noticed against that of a lockdown. Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting will be left bellowing, "Get back to work, peasants!", only for the peasants to reply, "We already have, because we won. We beat you."

That the Opposition had held onto a seat with an increased majority midterm would not be a story even under normal circumstances. At both of the General Elections when the Labour Party was led by Jeremy Corbyn, it did better at the City of Chester than it did yesterday. Even in 2019, it did better by 9773. In 2017, the difference was a whopping 14,714, only 2595 fewer than its total vote at this by-election. There are still two years to go until the next General Election.

We are heading for a hung Parliament. To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.

2 comments:

  1. Do you know Huw Merriman?

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    1. No, he graduated a couple of years before I arrived. We do have mutual friends, though. Him, Mark Harper, Richard Holden, there is now real promise at the Department for Transport. The unions are given a hearing that they would never get from Labour.

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