Putin It In Perspective

Of course the Russian Presidential Election has been rigged, but Vladimir Putin would have won it anyway, just not by as much. At least two of the other three candidates, including the one who came second, would have been even worse from the point of view of the people who were making a fuss, and at least one of them would have been so from the point of view of almost anyone. The former point, and arguably the latter, would also have been true of Alexei Navalny, if anyone much in Russia had ever heard of him before, albeit under prison camp conditions, he had dropped dead of natural causes as we fortysomethings sometimes do. It is we cockroaches that survive.

Having kicked out the French, the mighty Mali has now kicked out the Americans. Good luck to either of those against Mali's new patron, Russia. The stalemate in Ukraine is exactly as predicted in that link. Well under a fifth of Ukraine's territory is under Russian occupation, mostly areas that, by the heavily Ukrainian Soviet elite, were put into the Ukrainian SSR in a clearly unsuccessful attempt to make its independence impossible. They are full of Russians. Letting them go would not be a surrender. It would be a solution. The Ukrainian regime's persecution of a wide range of political parties, of trade unions, of independent media, of religious organisations, and of the Russian language and its speakers, is of a piece with its glorification of Nazi collaborators and with its fondness for their symbolism. There is no good side in almost any war, and there is certainly none in this one.

Most of the parties in the House of Commons are worse than useless in their understanding, or lack of understanding, of these matters. 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.

I have no plan to join the Workers Party of Britain, although nor would I expect to stand against it. If, however, it did not contest North Durham, then I would. 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. We have made a start.