In Peaceful Liberty

Rishi Sunak should be invited to condemn the statement, "We won't rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty." Keir Starmer has done so by withdrawing the whip from Andy McDonald, who should announce his candidacy for Mayor of the Tees Valley. Woman of the Day, Louise Ellman, should be asked to list her achievements in 22 years as the MP for one of the safest seats in the House.

And recalling the implicit suggestion that there were more Trotskyists in Britain than people in the Army, since that many had voted for Jeremy Corbyn to be Leader of the Labour Party, Suella Braverman should be made to explain what she thought that half a million Hamas supporters in London alone, with a million or more in the country as a whole, had been doing hitherto. As, again, should Starmer.

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 Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and 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.