"We Apologise For The Delay"?

The British models of rail privatisation and of water privatisation have been so successful that nowhere on the planet has copied them. Although preliminary measures are in place, the privatisation of water has never quite happened even in Scotland or in Northern Ireland.

Privatisation of the utilities is a racket. The same product, via the same pipes or wires, cannot possibly cost different amounts from different companies. Never mind from the same company, but on different tariffs. The utilities are currently delivered by cartels of pretend competitors. The solution is obvious.

And like the recent creation of Great British Railways, "a new public body that will bring the operation of track and trains under the same roof and oversee timetables and ticketing," today's renationalisation of TransPennine Express is delaying the inevitable. An inevitability that is also colossally popular. Although it would still have to be run by the right people. When return tickets are abolished, then expect two singles to cost only as much as a return for one year, but no longer. Even that, though, will be too much for the Trussonomic Labour Party.

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 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.