Sunday 17 September 2023

The Weak Last Week

On Tuesday 12th September, Labour promised to ban zero hours contracts and to increase statutory sick pay. On Friday 15th September, Labour reneged on both of those commitments, but promised to build HS2 all the way to Manchester. And on Sunday 17th September, Labour said that it would not be doing that, either.

That last is a signal of permission to the Government, a promise that there would be no Official Opposition to what it wanted to do. That signal was sent about the Triple Lock, and now it has been sent about HS2 to Manchester. Expect something like this about twice a week between now and the General Election.

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.

2 comments:

  1. Isn't it amazing no party has the guts and principle to do what they should have done years ago and scrap HS2, the white elephant of white elephants? It has balooned in cost from £32 billion to over £100 billion and will destroy over 500 ancient English woodlands.

    All to save "carbon emissions" and shave 29 minutes off a journey to London (which will be squandered anyway to all the traffic getting from the station).

    All that taxpayers money and ancient woodland sacrificed to the gods of net zero.

    Scrap the damned thing and instead upgrade the east and west coast mainlines, and regional rail lines.

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    Replies
    1. At £100 billion, what the hell are they building it out of? But there is your answer as to why it cannot be cancelled. What a corrupt country this is.

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