We Keep The Receipts

Only eight MPs plus the four tellers opposed the war in Afghanistan, despite the pronounced division in the electorate. Only 13, and two of the tellers, opposed the war in Libya, likewise. Far more opposed the war in Iraq, but the public opposition to that was overwhelming. Yet we in the general public who opposed them all have been proved right. Oh, what we have endured in the meantime. But we have been proved right.

Therefore, take heart, fellow resisters of the enforcement of the cashless society. A few weeks ago, we were cranks. But now, the promise to give everyone a cash machine within three miles is itself a major concession of the need for State action against corporate overreach, while the principle underlying it puts us within touching distance of a statutory ban on refusal to accept cash payment at least below a very high level. An obstacle has presented itself to mass surveillance by the merger of State and corporate power, for which there is a word. Next up, saving our railway ticket offices.

No main party has its heart in this, they are all signed up to the English NHS privatisation that makes the Iraq War look popular, and every party in the House of Commons, with the possible but unconfirmed exception of Alba, is signed up to the war in Ukraine, right down to every faction within each of them. The American permission to deploy F16s is as clear an act of war as it is possible to imagine. It has been welcomed by Denmark and the Netherlands.

Mette Frederiksen and Mark Rutte. As ever, the call for war is coming from the liberal bourgeoisie. That is the class least likely to join the Armed Forces voluntarily, or to see combat even in periods of conscription. Operationally, that is of course just as well. Ignore, though, anyone who advocated a military intervention unless you could imagine that person as an 18-year-old in battle. We are talking here about the 101st Chairborne Division. As in the United States. And as in the United Kingdom.

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.