International Development

Rishi Sunak wanted David Cameron very, very badly. When a Secretary of State is a Peer, then one of his Ministers of State attends Cabinet with him and answers for him in the House of Commons. Cameron's is Andrew Mitchell, who was his International Development Secretary (and a good friend of Saint Helena) and then his Chief Whip. Yes, Chief Whip. While Cameron was Prime Minister. Before Sunak was in Parliament at all. Sunak wanted Cameron very, very badly.

There can be no mistaking the message when at this of all times, that role has been given to an old hand from the old Department for International Development. On every day that Mitchell was its Secretary of State, his Minister of State was Alan Duncan. No blow-in to Toryland, Cameron himself has deep Arabist roots, eventually taking over the former seat of his mentor, Douglas Hurd.

In 2006, when Cameron was Leader of the Opposition, the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon was called "disproportionate", which is normally the unutterable word about any Israeli action, in the House of Commons by the then Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, who has just brokered Cameron's return to office. As Prime Minister, Cameron called Gaza "a prison camp" in 2010, and the West Bank settlements "illegal" a full six years later. He will not be joining "Tommy Robinson" on any imitation of a march led by Marine Le Pen.

As a sign of quite how things had been changed by the sacking of Suella Braverman, Mitchell today told the House that, "We have impressed this on the Israeli Government: they must act within international law; they must take every precaution to minimise civilian casualties, limiting attacks to military targets; and they must stop extremist settler violence in the West Bank." The Labour Party would withdraw the whip from any MP who said that, and would expel any ordinary member.

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 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.