This Situation Has Gone On Long Enough

Rishi Sunak is the worst Tony Blair tribute act that I have ever heard. And I've heard a lot. If he believes what he is saying, then he should resign. Who does he think is the Prime Minister of this nightmare country that he describes?

At least when Theresa May stood at that lectern and did the Great Dictator speech, then she had an endpoint. "Opposition parties are opposing, and the House of Review is reviewing, so I am calling a General Election." Sunak, on the other hand, has given us, "People are protesting, and some of them have voted for someone I don't like, so, well, nothing." Sunak has libelled George Galloway. Imagine the damages that might be awarded against a man who had so misused the platform of Prime Minister while personally worth £720 million.

George took more votes than Simon Danzcuk, Paul Ellison, Iain Donaldson whose party had won the seat as recently as 2005, the man with "Labour" next to his name, and the man with "Green" next to his name, put together. Keir Starmer has indeed changed the Labour Party. He has changed it from a party that contested elections, to one that does not. Yet which somehow still manages to lose them. Notice that Sunak is this annoyed that what is supposed to be the other side has lost a seat. Beating Labour and the Lib Dems in Rochdale meant that it was the Conservative who had a relatively good night. That has obviously given no pleasure to his Leader.

Ellison had been on holiday during the campaign, yet he still took twice as many votes as Reform UK. Perhaps that party should not have put up a Remainer? But that showing was not a blip. Except perhaps at Parish or Town level, Reform's entire elected representation consists of eight councillors. There are plenty of Groups that exist on only one council and which have more than eight people in them. Reform cannot even recruit Lee Anderson, who has been suspended from their own party, much less can it get an MP elected. It is obsessed with former Labour politicians, from Anderson to Danzcuk, even to the point of having once offered a byelection gig to George. He has kept the receipts. I am not a member of the Workers Party of Britain, but it should now be on the airwaves as often as the Greens, and more often than any party with no MPs.

Militant used to pretend that it was just a newspaper when it was really a political party. Reform pretends to be a political party, but it is really just a newspaper, although not for much longer, and a television station that Ofcom will certainly shut down early in the next Parliament unless there were a Conservative minority government dependent on Reform or the DUP. There will not be.

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 Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and 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. We have made a start.