The Division Bell Tolls

Jane Stevenson and Brendan Clarke-Smith voted with the Government for Third Reading of the unamended Rwanda Bill. Lee Anderson abstained, as only 18 Conservatives did, but how many of those were absent for other reasons, as David Lammy, Rachel Reeves and Jonathan Reynolds were? And while Jonathan Gullis or John Redwood may have abstained from the right, did Theresa May?

There were 11 Conservative votes against. Eleven. Half as many as voted against Maastricht a generation ago, and including one of the same people. Anderson's three GB News colleagues of Philip Davies, Esther McVey and Jacob Rees-Mogg did not even abstain. They all voted with the Government, in McVey's case as the Government. Such is its and her definition of Common Sense. Will Anderson be reinstated as a Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party? Or will GB News reconsider its annual payment to him of £100,000 to talk to no one else? Why should it any longer care whether he did or did not?

Although Reform UK has decided to contest the Kingswood by-election after all, it obviously does not frighten anyone in the Conservative Party. Or even beyond it, since Andrew Bridgen also voted with the Government. 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.