For Better Or Worse?

In its first two days, Jamie Driscoll's crowdfunder has raised more than £100,000. Kim who? As for Keir Mather, presented as a potential Member of Parliament at the age of 25, he moved seamlessly from being Wes Streeting's teaboy to being Senior Policy Advisor to the CBI. That says everything that needs to be said about all concerned.

Her parroting of "I just can't see where the money is going to come from" only exposes Rachel Reeves as hopelessly out of her depth. Try taxing dividends, inheritance and capital gains at the same rate as earnings, for a start. Try foregoing the odd war from time to time, since the money can always, always, always be found for those.

Of course it can. The issuing of currency is an act of the State, which is literally the creator of all money. A sovereign state with its own free floating, fiat currency has as much of that currency as it chooses to issue to itself. All wars are fought on this understanding, but the principle applies universally.

The State also has the fiscal and monetary means to control inflation, means that therefore need to be under democratic political control in both cases. That is what both fiscal policy and monetary policy are for: to encourage certain politically chosen forms of behaviour, and to discourage others. They are not where the State's money comes from. Nothing is "unaffordable", every recession is discretionary on the part of the Government, and there is no such thing as "taxpayers' money".

Tony Blair was Labour's most successful Leader in what way? Is winning General Elections an end in itself? Even if it is, then Harold Wilson won four to Blair's three. Is being Prime Minister for 10 years an end in itself? If so, then David Cameron's six years in office would constitute a score draw with Clement Attlee's.

"Imagine how much worse things would be under the Tories," Hilary Armstrong used to say, having run out of anything else, and assuming the point to be unanswerable. Here we are again, more or less. "At least we would be better than the Tories," the Labour Party says, never having had anything else, and assuming the point to be unanswerable. Well, in what specific, demonstrable way would you be better than the Tories? What would you do, and what difference would it make?

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.