The Labour vote at Uxbridge and South Ruislip was 18,682 in 2017, and 18,141 in 2019 with a candidate highly supportive of the then Leader, but only 13,470 yesterday. At Selby and Ainsty, it was 19,149 in 2017, and 13,858 in 2019, but still only 16,456 yesterday. In both constituencies, the claim that large numbers of people have just voted Labour for the first time is plainly and simply false.
All right, Keir Mather gained 2598 votes, but he was still 2963 behind Labour's total before Keir Starmer deliberately sabotaged Jeremy Corbyn, who it must be said let him, by unilaterally announcing a second referendum on EU membership. Danny Beales was 4671 votes behind even the 2019 total, and 5212 behind the Labour showing at the height of Corbynism. Steve Tuckwell has just beaten him by only 495, thereby acquiring a Wikipedia entry overnight. These things matter in the strange circles in which Beales moves, so why does he still have a Wikipedia entry? Why has he ever had one? Does everyone on Camden Council get one automatically?
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.
Mather was at Hymers College.
ReplyDeleteThe senior school fees there are £14,205 a year. The full 11-year experience costs £138,025. It shouldn't matter, of course. But it does. Of course.
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