A Significant Spiralling?

What, exactly, does anyone propose to bomb in Yemen? There was precious little there before, with British Officers in the control room, the Saudis and their associates began a war to install a puppet regime. That went on for nine years, creating the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, but it still ended in failure. Organised mass abstention in support of it was the largest Labour rebellion of the Corbyn years. But notice that apart from Bahrain doing what a service station exists to do, no Arab country is playing any part in this latest excursion.

Everything that was said about Afghanistan is being said about Yemen, and everything that was said about the Taliban is being said about the Houthis. It was all true then, and it is all true now. But the Taliban still won. You were beaten even by that, and you will be beaten even by this. It took you 20 years to lose to a rabble in Afghanistan. Are you prepared to spend 20 years losing to a rabble in Yemen? Although while the Houthis are poor, they are not unsophisticated as such. Brush up on Zaydism, which is about to become important. And on Ibadism. You read it here first, as you often do.

An overall majority for either main party would be taken as a public endorsement of this war, among so very many other horrendous things at home and abroad. 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.