Calibre and Commitment

Fun and games on Newcastle City Council, where the Independents put down a motion in support of Jamie Driscoll. Yes, of course I know. But so what? In fact, I hope that every Independent Councillor in Newcastle, Sunderland, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Northumberland and Durham will undertake to sign Jamie's nomination papers, and will do so. Be in from the start.

Ken Livingstone springs to mind on this of all days, but when he won in 2000, then he beat the far from rightish Frank Dobson. In 2012, George Galloway beat the then seriously left-wing Imran Hussain. At least in England, the Independent Left has never had a victory over the Labour Party as sweet as Jamie's over the Hard Right Kim McGuinness. And that will be won a few short months before a General Election to which the North East's Red Wall will be crucial.

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.