Iron Cross

We certainly are.

Recall Parliament. And then consider why it is on holiday so much, that there need to be such frequent calls for it to be recalled.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton ought to organise a joint bid to buy Tata's plants in Britain.

After all, it is highly likely that, this time next year one of them is going to have control of Trident. Why not of what was once our own steel industry, too?

In fact, if they want Trident, then they can pay for it. Between their respective networks of corporations and foundations, they probably could.

And if they couldn't, then they couldn't have it.

The EU would never let it happen, but the sight of a Conservative Government's so much as discussing the renationalisation of steel is simply magnificent.

That an Indian company owns our remaining domestic steelworks, while most of the steel used here is supplied by the very Chinese State, throws into sharp relief the consequences of privatisation for great tracts of our national life, several of them made out of steel.

Once this debate starts, then, with any luck, it should not stop until it was well and truly over.

French, Dutch and German state railway companies may overcharge us in order to keep their fares low at home.

China may be building our nuclear power stations for the French State. The "Royal" in "Royal Mail" may now refer to the Emir of Kuwait.

But never mind. At least we still have the earth-shatteringly important Falkland Islands.

If America wanted them for a base, then we would just kick their population onto the next boat to wherever, just as we did to that of Diego Garcia. Certainly under this Government, as under the last one.

But these days, it goes beyond even that.

If the Chinese, or the Saudis, or more or less anyone else at all, simply wanted to buy the Falkland Islands, then this Government would let that potential buyer have them, at least if enough money would up in the right accounts.

Look what and where else has been allowed to have been bought up by more or less anyone at all. For a start, London.

Steel Ourselves

Of course there is something that could be done to Save Our Steel. But not within the EU's state aid rules.

This was all predicted 40 years ago. It was being repeated less than a year ago by the people who have apparently since taken control of the Labour Party.

Vote Leave. Then Labour can get on with being Labour.

Goodbye, Galloway?

You wish, Nick Cohen. You wish. How long have you been saying this? And he was not invited to the debates that you ridicule him for not having attended. But, of course, you already knew that.

George Galloway’s mainstream social democratic programme deserves Londoners’ first preference votes. With Labour likely to do very well for the London Assembly’s constituencies, list votes need to be cast for Respect.

London Mayoral candidates’ nominators must include 10 registered electors in the City. Since Galloway has managed that, we may greatly look forward to next year’s elections to the Court of Common Council.

With the SNP expected to win most of the constituency seats at Holyrood, all opponents of any one or more of George Osborne’s failed austerity programme, of neoconservative wars, of Trident, and of the Saudi regime, ought to give their list votes to Labour.

The Labour lead in Wales is welcome. And we may hope to see a strong Labour showing in the English local elections. Especially now that the Liberal Democrats have collapsed.

"Brooklynite"

It means "Jew".

The anti-Labour papers called Ed Miliband all sorts of things that meant "Jew".

Hillary Clinton is doing the same to Bernie Sanders.

None of this has much, if anything, to do with anyone's view of the State of Israel.

Tenancy Agreement

I am not a landlord, although I wouldn't mind getting into it in, perhaps, 10 or so years' time.

What is so horribly wrong with buy-to-let? Many a stalwart Labour Councillor has a tenant or two, and sometimes quite a few.

There just needs to be proper regulation, properly enforced. Like anything else.

This Time

This time last year, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell would have been campaigning for a vote to Leave.

If Tony Benn were still alive, then he would be vigorous in that cause, and it would not matter in the least that he would be 91 next month.

And if Tony Benn were still alive, then Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell would also be active campaigners to Leave, no matter what offices they held.

Dependencies No More?

When the United Kingdom exercises its right of self-determination by declaring its independence of the British Overseas Territories, including the several tax havens in the Caribbean, then what will become of the tax havens in the English Channel and in the Irish Sea?

The Crown Dependencies ought each to be required to hold a referendum with two options on the ballot paper.

One option would be incorporation into the United Kingdom, with the existing legislatures remaining in place as devolved bodies, with the Royal Titles Act amended to include "Duke of Normandy" or "Lord of Man", and so on.

The other option would be independence. There would be no Third Way. One would hope for the first option to be preferred.

That would constitute and effect the retention of the High Court of Tynwald, of the States of Jersey, of the States of Guernsey, and subject to that last of the States of Alderney and of the Chief Pleas of Sark.

But all fully subject to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in which those bodies' electors were in turn represented.

Thus would be set the pattern for the assertion of that sovereignty over the Corporation of the City of London.

The successful reform of the Chief Pleas of Sark, which until 2008 was Europe's last feudal state, ought to make very easy indeed the successful reform of Europe's last Medieval republican oligarchy.

By, especially, the abolition of the requirement of admission to membership of a public school drinking club in order to seek election to one's local authority, and by the abolition of votes for businesses, indeed of more votes for businesses than for people.

At least 30 of the 7,375 inhabitants of the City of London have managed to put Sadiq Khan, Siân Berry and George Galloway onto the ballot paper for Mayor of London.

Not many wards that size could nominate all three of a Labour, a Green and a Respect candidate for the Council. It is evident, then, that the City is a considerably more than averagely left-wing place.

We may therefore look forward to an end to the situation in which 99 out of 100 members of the Court of Common Council are the Tory Independents whom one tends to associate with very rural areas, but who have ruled the City since time immemorial.

All that this will take will be an end to the literal and metaphorical Freemasonry.