Part of the Problem

He walked into it, as is his wont, but Jeremy Corbyn has apparently been hectored and defamed on Peston by someone called Liz Kendall, whom advanced research reveals to have come fourth, with 4.5 per cent of the vote, when Corbyn became Leader of the Labour Party. Otherwise completely forgotten, she had been invited on for no reason except to lie about him.

That's ITV for you. The Labour Right's in-house television station is funded only by its giant corporate advertisers. Clearly, this is what they want. The same is true of LBC, with its guest presenter gigs for Wes Streeting, Rachel Reeves, David Lammy and Sadiq Kahn, and with its regular Call Keir feature.

Hence Richard Madeley's preposterous attempts to take down Mick Lynch, hence Alan Johnson on The Masked Singer, hence Piers Morgan's gushing "interview" with Starmer, hence Morgan's handover of the gig to Derek Draper's wife, and hence his replacement in the morning with Alastair Campbell and Ed Balls.

In his autobiography, Gordon Brown stated matter-of-factly that his protégé, Balls, did popular television as part of a strategy to make himself Prime Minister. Well, it worked for Boris Johnson, and it yet may again. Morgan has fallen a long way since his opposition to the Iraq War unleashed the torrent of personal abuse to which he has been subject ever since. By the way, Prince Harry has confirmed that Morgan had been right all along about racism in the Royal Family.

ITV has always been in the vanguard of taking down and keeping down Boris Johnson, because he would wipe the floor with Keir Starmer. But Starmer's dishonesty is becoming a story. He lied to his party members to get their votes, so he would lie to anyone else to get their votes. 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.