The English Patient No More

There is something almost admirable about the sheer nerve of the Labour Party, to criticise cuts to bus services. Here in County Durham, we have only begun to reverse the previous Labour administration's war on buses since we removed it after more than 100 years.

Meanwhile, no more free flu jabs and Covid-19 vaccinations for 50 to 64-year-olds. But only in England. Polio rampant, and triathletes going down with E. coli, due to the pumping of human faeces into the privatised water. But only in England. To Let signs already up on well-used railway ticket offices even though the public consultation period has not officially concluded. But only in England. Yet more NHS privatisation. But only in England. And a Labour Party that rules out water renationalisation, rules out rail renationalisation, and complains that the latest NHS privatisation should have gone further and should have been announced sooner. But only in England.

Still, 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.