Exercising The Interests

James Henderson, John Chapman and James Kirby were killed by an Elbit Hermes 450 drone, which is British-made. Bombing them three times to make sure that they were dead was not an accident. Starving the people of Gaza as a weapon of war, as advocated by Keir Starmer, necessitates the bombing of aid convoys. Already back in contention after the boundary changes moved the electoral focus back to their Southern battlegrounds with the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats are also taking the fight to Labour over Gaza. Well, Elbit leases its headquarters from Somerset Council. If Labour cannot mention that, then the Workers Party of Britain can.

What is Suella Braverman discussing in Israel, on what authority, and at whose expense? First sacked as Home Secretary because she was a massive security risk, she had to be sacked again for having incited a Fascist riot at the Cenotaph on Armistice Day, during which the Police were stabbed. Israel has lost the likes of Jonathan Sumption and Radek Sikorski. It must make do with Braverman. And Starmer.

Tonight, the Foreign Office is poised to ban arms sales to Israel, but Downing Street is having none of it, secure in the knowledge that it has the Official Opposition in the bag. 80 per cent of Conservative MPs and at least 40 per cent of Labour MPs, including everyone who matters, receive personal payments from a foreign state. That was not normal even before that state murdered three British citizens. Still, look at their names. Look at their faces. See how the United States, Canada, Australia and Poland react when white people are murdered. Not Britain, though. Britain is just letting it go. Only one of those named by Sir Alan Duncan was Jewish, and his case against all of them was unanswerable. That would have been well within the Tory mainstream until very recently indeed. The taking down of Jeremy Corbyn in case he put up taxes, and see how that has worked out, has changed both parties beyond recognition. By treating Sir Alan as it has, the Conservative Party has proved his point.

Israel is our ally in what way? What specific form does that alliance take? What do the Israelis do for us? At all, never mind such that they must be allowed to get away with this, as they are already being? Poland is conducting its own investigation into the death of Damian Sobol, so perhaps it will invoke NATO's Article 5 against Israel? Ah, NATO, 75 today, and under which our Armed Forces take orders from Officers who are themselves answerable to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and to Viktor Orbán. Something Something Attlee Something Something, apparently. But that does not apply to the National Health Service, which in England Labour is going into the General Election perfectly frankly promising to privatise. Either way, follow the money.

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 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.