Not A Straightforward Thing?

How quickly these things come round. Once again, it is Britain's turn to pay to host Volodymyr Zelensky's Travelling Circus, which is never going back to Ukraine, and in which the latest act is to be the Jets Coalition that, ho ho ho, had no jets. Hollywood is the intended destination, but Las Vegas looks more likely by the day.

Like the Storm Shadow cruise missiles, at where and at whom are these air defence missiles and these long-range attack drones to be aimed? "Defence" is usually a euphemism, but "attack" means exactly what it says. And we all know where and whom are going to be under attack.

All cheered on by the Labour Party, and therefore also by the SDLP. All cheered on by the Liberal Democrats, and therefore also by the Alliance Party. All cheered on by the SNP, and therefore also by Plaid Cymru. All cheered on by the Greens, who are the King's Party in every way, and who are already hardline hawks in government in Germany. All cheered on by the DUP, by National Conservatives, and by the Boris Johnson Fan Club at the Conservative Democratic Organisation. All cheered on by the Socialist Campaign Group. And not unconnectedly, all cheered on by Sinn Féin.

But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Keir Starmer would result in 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.