Technically Speaking

The United Kingdom is in its ninth recession since the Second World War. Seven have been under the Conservatives, six from start to finish and now this one. There was no recession on the day of the 2010 General Election. Even the one in 1975 was essentially a resumption of the previous one after a brief interlude that had not been characterised by bread and circuses, wine and roses, milk and honey. But it was a new recession. Technically. Ah, yes, this recession is "technical". It would not be called that under anyone else. Nor does it feel that way.

To say that the Conservative Party has "lost its reputation for economic competence" is to assume that it ever had one. If it has, then it has "lost" it numerous times that I can remember. It has certainly never deserved to have it. Such a reputation seems to be one of those things which Westminster Village journalists think about the country at large. Labour politicians then believe it because the press pack says it, not a failing that is confined to one party, and they duly run scared. No small part of the problem is that the Official Opposition is pre-emptively committed to whatever happened to be this failed Government's discredited economic policy on the day of the General Election.

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.