Private Grief

Nelly the Effluent packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus, but that was not yesterday's only story of the failures of privatisation. That of the Royal Mail has always cried out for a criminal investigation.

It was a flagrant act of larceny in the interests of the circle of George Osborne, who has of course welcomed the return of David Cameron, and who is himself advising Jeremy Hunt, on whose Economic Advisory Council sits Rupert Harrison. Osborne's long-time Chief of Staff and then Evening Standard employee, Harrison has been selected as the Conservative candidate for Bicester and Woodstock.

Yet there is no suggestion that Rachel Reeves would remove him from the EAC, presumably even while he was sitting as a Conservative MP. "Grownup", "sensible", you know how this goes. You may also recall that the Cabinet Minister who privatised the Royal Mail was Vince Cable, a Liberal Democrat, who did so pursuant to EU law. Neither his party nor Reeves's has any policy to renationalise it, even though Brexit makes that possible. Nor does either of them have any policy to renationalise the sewage-filled water of Thérèse Coffey and of the latest failed Health Secretary, Steve Barclay.

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.