The Islington Tribune, Indeed

A fortnight ago, there turned out to be no electorate to the right of the Conservative Party, at least unless you counted Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green voters, which some of us would, but which they themselves presumably would not. And in the last week, that party's own Right has adhered to its principles by using just enough rope to hang itself, with the gallows provided by Nigel "Brexit Has Failed" Farage and by Ann "No Cheese Sandwiches For You" Widdecombe.

But it is not all doom and gloom for the Righties. There is now no doubt, if there ever was, that Jeremy Corbyn is going to contest Islington North at next year's General Election. They should sit back and enjoy the show. They were never going to win there, so they should instead amuse themselves at Corbyn's 20,000 votes and at his First Past the Post spot against some rancid little Stamerrhoid whose CV will then record that he, she or it had lost Labour a seat with a majority of 26,188, or 48.7 per cent. That was not the total Labour vote last time. That was the majority. 48.7 per cent. And some richly deserving young chancer is about to lose it to an Independent in his seventies. Such fun.

Unlike anyone in Great Britain avowedly to the right of the Conservatives, Corbyn will then be a Member of what history will record as the legendary hung Parliament of 2024. And 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.