Burden Reduced?

Michael Gove is now a declared candidate for Leader of the Conservative Party. But beyond even Labour's rule change to make it everything short of mathematically impossible for more than one candidate to stand for Leader, the Conservative threshold is whatever the Executive of the 1922 Committee feels like setting at the time.

Not quite a year ago, that was 40 per cent of the party's MPs, in order to ensure that Rishi Sunak would be the only candidate. Next time, it will be at least that, if not 50 per cent, or, if no one reached that bar, then whoever had the most nominations. So, Sunak again if he wanted it, or Jeremy Hunt if he did not. And that will just be that. Again.

Over on the other side, Labour's lead has fallen from 37 points to 10, leaving the party on 39, less than it managed at the 2017 General Election, which it did not win. Yet there is still a year or more to go until the next Election, which the right-wing media will fight harder than any since 1992. In 2017, Labour gained Rutherglen and Hamilton West, it took 17,953 votes at Mid Bedfordshire (14,155 more than the Liberal Democrats), and it took 16,401 votes at Tamworth (14,440 more than the Lib Dems). Is it going to match or surpass those results?

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 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.