Thrown Under The 30p Bus

"He gave that interview before his appointment, and his opinion is not that of the Government or of the Prime Minister. Being Deputy Chairman of the party does not make him a Minister, anyway."

You can smell the burning rubber as the bus disappears over the horizon, leaving only the charred remains of Lee Anderson. To whom would he extend the death penalty? To people who had had to steal food because they had been unable to eat on 30p per day? He is suggesting it at all because he knows that it is not going to happen.

40 per cent still supports capital punishment for certain categories of murder, but even that is concentrated heavily among people who left school at 14 or younger and who remembered a vastly more violent Britain at school, at work, in the home, on National Service, outside and sometimes inside pubs, and so on. Another 10 years, and that will be down to the 15 to 20 per cent that will always be incorrigible on this issue. In the meantime, though, Anderson is trying to play to that base, although even at 56 he could be the son of a great deal of it.

Understandably tired of Anderson's profile, and with nearly two years to go until the next General Election, Rishi Sunak has appointed him purely in order to "have to" sack him sometime this year. Anderson is unlikely even to contest that Election. Yet the biggest threat of a return to the gallows in two generations is the threat of a Starmer Government, so watch out for him as some sort of adviser to that. That is what he is positioning himself for, with this Bring Back Hanging business. He cannot possibly expect Sunak to do it.

But 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.