Fraternité, Travail, Progrès

Never mind which country Kupiansk should be in. The biggest story in the world right now is that the French are being kicked out of West Africa. Yes, behind the coup in Niger is Russia, or the Wagner Group, or both. But it is massively popular both in Niger and in the region. Indeed, there is no "but" about that.

The only predominantly non-white countries to have sanctioned Russia are the American military colonies of Japan and South Korea, plus Taiwan if you count it. India has never condemned the invasion of Ukraine. Across Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific, bad undergraduate smirking and giggling about "anti-imperialism", or simple ignorance of the terminology, does not cut it among those who remember The Struggle.

Insofar as The Struggle has ever ended, since most ECOWAS countries have American military bases in them, so that a threat to intervene in Niger is a threat from the United States. Suspended from ECOWAS as Niger also is, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea have already made it clear that such an intervention would be an act of war against them.

Russia grows closer to Algeria, it is also building a base in Egypt, and the Wagner Group already has bases in Libya. With the Mediterranean's southern shore pretty much covered, if what mattered down in the Sahel were really to take the fight to Islamist terrorists, as it very well may be, then you could not do no better than Russia and Wagner. Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea had already worked that out. Clearly, Niger has also done so. And no, their methods are not nice.

The rising voice of Africa is the 34 or 35-year-old Captain Ibrahim Traoré, Interim President of Burkina Faso, and he has expressed his concern that Western weapons sent to Ukraine will end up in Africa. There are already jihadists in Ukraine, fighting their face-to-face enemies on three continents, Russia and the Wagner Group. Once weapons are in the jihadis' hands, then they are in their hands. In fact, once any weapon is out there, then it is out there. The Ukrainians or their allies can now bomb central Moscow by a drone small enough to have avoided detection. These days, who could not bomb anywhere?

Captain Traoré gets to the heart of the matter, "Why does resource-rich Africa remain the poorest region of the world? We ask these questions and get no answers. However, we have the opportunity to build new relationships that will help us build a better future." France generates 72 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power, the highest percentage in the world. Niger was where Saddam Hussein was supposed to have been buying uranium, although of course he was not, but in reality more than half of its uranium goes to France, while only 18 per cent of the people of Niger have any electricity at all. General Abdourahmane Tchiani has banned uranium exports to France. Anywhere that wanted to be Niger's new market once it had electrified itself and its friendly neighbours, needs to get in now as a partner in that process.

Russia and the Wagner Group both already understand that. As will China, and India, and South Africa, and Brazil, and so on. Yet who on either British frontbench has their wits about them? There will soon be a Radisson Blu in Conakry, as there already are in Bamako, Ouagadougou and Niamey, yet what does Keir Starmer know of any of them? Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak's welcome enough move towards an all-of-the-above energy policy of secure, well-paid, high status, unionised jobs has been tainted by the whiff of corruption around Infosys, thereby making the case for public ownership against both parties.

But Sunak has delivered a body blow to the Green-aligned SNP in the North East of Scotland. The Liberal Democrats are roaring back in the West County. Not even Keir Mather expects Labour to hold Selby and Ainsty. Net Zero is Starmer's approval rating here on the Red Wall. ULEZ is dooming Labour in Metroland, with the suspicion of similar things poised to do it no end of damage in suburbia generally. Interest rates and inflation may be a lot lower this time next year than they were now. The few Labour MPs who had withdrawn their signatures from the Stop the War Coalition's statement on Ukraine will have been shown to have been right the first time, as they already have been.

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 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.