On The Rob

Shoplifting has exploded due to the proliferation of self-service checkouts, and the rocketing cost of basic food and other day-to-day items. The latter is a direct political choice, while the former is part of the corporate enforcement of cashless payment that, unlike in certain comparable countries, the Government has done nothing to arrest.

The Government relishes the opportunities for mass surveillance, all political parties are funded by those corporate interests, and the Official Opposition positively prides itself on having no economic policy of its own. In similar vein, it fails to defend England's railway ticket offices, although only England's need to be defended. The public consultation period has formally been extended, yet the To Let signs are already going up. After all, who is there to object?

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.