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Pity poor little Wes Streeting, who spent the whole of Politics Live telling the Government not to give an inch on public sector pay. In the closing seconds, Jo Coburn read out that it had given a lot more than that. The polls are narrowing, and there is still well over a year to go. The Guardian, which is many things but which understands its core audience perfectly, has already gone right off Keir Starmer and his supporting cast. No fat lady has sung yet.

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 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.