From Tripoli To Triple Lock

Whatever might have turned Libya into such a basket case? Of the nine Labour MPs who voted against that catastrophic intervention, only three are still in the House of Commons, and since they are Jeremy Corbyn, Barry Gardiner and John McDonnell, then they are unlikely to be made Shadow Foreign Office Ministers any time soon. Only one Conservative MP did so. And no Liberal Democrat. Not one.

The Coalition has a lot to answer for, and that has nothing to do with whining about tuition fees. Everything that the Coalition did, was done by the Lib Dems. For example, the war in Libya. The Bedroom Tax. The entire austerity programme. And so on. In the case of the never-ending disaster that was and is the privatisation of the Royal Mail, then the Lib Dems were directly responsible in the person of the Business Secretary on every day of the Coalition, Vince Cable.

Still, the Pensions Minister on every day of the Coalition was Steve Webb, so the Lib Dems can claim the credit for the Triple Lock. With first Labour and, thus granted permission, now also the Conservatives no longer absolute in their commitment to it, then the Lib Dems have an attack line, and this time it would not even be a lie.

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.