Pulling The Chain

One imagines the Minister of Sanitation as the formidable Mrs Netty Boggs, played by Hattie Jacques. But how in the world does Britain not have one? Where else remotely comparable does not have essentially that position? Public conveniences have almost disappeared since 2010, although the population in general and the elderly population in particular have both increased, while sewage is being pumped into the rivers and onto the beaches. Yet Labour opposes water renationalisation, and it joins in the other side's real or wannabe public schoolboy giggling about this issue.

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.