Tories Admit That the Magic Money Tree Really Does Exist!

The first photo has emerged of the magic money tree which the Tories claimed didn't exist. Actually it does and it grows in Northern Ireland, which is why today several large men in bowler hats were seen pushing wheelbarrows away from Downing Street, loaded with £1 billion worth of fertiliser for it.

Let's look on the bright side, the Democratic Unionist Party may be a trifle too conservative for me, but when it comes to economic matters they are on the far left, and that's all that matters right now. So the Tories have had to drop their plans to screw pensioners by abolishing the triple-lock, keep winter fuel payments, and dump their plans to reduce care for the elderly. As someone who is looking forward to getting a whacking great pay rise when he goes on pension in 2022, all I can say is thank fuck the cry really is No Surrender!

Reflections on the 2017 General Election

The Tory strong and stable line left its creators with egg on their faces, as Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party looks more and more like a government in waiting, with Theresa May's Tories increasingly appearing as a party in office but not in power. How did we get into this ludicrous situation?

People do not like being asked to vote when it is not necessary, is the first answer to that question. Back in 1974, the Tories asked the people to decide who governs? The people, myself included, replied that it wasn't going to be a collection of clowns who asked daft questions like that and we threw them out. This month the Tories did something equally silly in calling an election that was not needed and then being surprised at the result. Put simply, we expect the government to govern so that we can get on with our lives, and Theresa May forgot that basic rule.

The other lesson of this election is that any party that tries to fuck with the baby boomers does so at its peril. The Tories tried to remove the pensions' triple lock and paid the price for that. They also came up with a reform of elderly care that led an awful lot of boomers to realise that the houses that they hoped to inherit would vanish in nursing home fees. That Dementia Tax as Labour quickly dubbed it was also a reason why many people chose not to vote Tory in 2017.

We should remember that the Tory vote actually went up in this election and the just over 42 percent that they scored was a higher number than Cameron managed in both 2010 and 2015. The problem they had was that Labour's vote also rose to 40 percent and that both main parties then took chunks out of the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and Scottish National Party's share of the seats. It looks like we are back to two-party politics in Great Britain, so 42 percent is not enough to form a government with an overall majority.

That said, if the governing party can pull itself together, then there is no reason why a reasonable government cannot emerge from this chaos that can then run the country for the next four or even five years. That is something that the bulk of the population would welcome.

To be honest, the thought of another election makes my blood run cold. The Democratic Unionist Party has thrown in its ten seats behind the Tories, and although that party is socially very conservative, when it comes to benefits, pensions and government spending it puts Labour to shame.

So long as the government concentrates on the big issue, which is Brexit, and ignores pretty much everything else, then I see no reason why this Tory government cannot survive for a full term.

All they need to do is remember that the baby boomers are not to be touched until enough of us have died off in about ten years to make that possible. Oh, and give the Ulstermen lots of money.

Vote Labour Today

I voted today at 1.30pm to try and ensure that the strong & stable bollocks that the Tories were coming out with was consigned to history. It's probably a forlorn hope, but just image the fun you will have when you go to work tomorrow and see the look on the face of the snot-gobbling management git with his National Front haircut and cheap suit who likes to give you old buck.

Labour is offering us goodies the like of which we could only dream about under previous leaders. A defence of the triple lock on pensions, nationalisation of several industries, an end to university fees are just three that come to mind.

More importantly even than the goodies is the knowledge that  Labour under Corbyn is a party that is committed to Brexit - and probably a hard one as well. Say what you like about old Jezza, his opposition to that capitalist front goes back decades.

Yeah, I know, it is asking a lot to expect normal people to vote for a party headed by a man who is a teetotal vegetarian who has fucked Dianne Abbott, but let's put that to one side and concentrate on the goodies that are on offer.

Turnout here in Edinburgh North & Leith was very high today as people trudged through the piss-pouring rain to cast their ballots. If we can do it then so can you:

Vote Labour!

Some Information for First-Time Tory Voters

His Satanic Majesty wishes to advise all first time Tory voters of the following changes to the schedule:

The free baby that you have been promised to eat will only be handed over after you have performed your abominable voting act. 

The pretty puppy dogs that you were due to get on voting day to drown will now be delivered the day after the vote.

The need to perform the osculum infame has been dropped for the 8th June 2017 only. Your cross on the paper next to a Tory candidate is proof enough of your willingness to move over to the dark side.

His Satanic Majesty feels sure that you will accept these minor changes.

Labour starts to climb in the polls as Tory landslide hopes fade

Any Tory reading this may very well wish to clench his arsehole before reading further to avoid embarrassing accidents:

The latest Ipsos-Mori poll out just today has the Tories on 45%, Labour on 40% and the Lib-Dems on a derisory seven. Now I know we all ignored the YouGov poll on Wednesday, 'cos one swallow does not make a girlfriend, but this is a trend that we are seeing here, folks, and we ignore them at our peril.

Women appear to be deserting the Tories in large numbers, and if the Tories lose that faithful constituency then they really are in trouble.

Finally, Mr Plod has decided the charge South Thanet Tory candidate Craig Mackinlay over his 2015 election expenses. Decided today, that is, with less than a week to go until polling day. 

All good fun!

Labour Is Doing Well, but the Tories Should Still Win

The latest Times/YouGov poll is out and should provide a good bowel-loosening moment or two for the Tories, but I don't believe it. My reading of the situation tells me that Mother May will be returned with a decent majority next week, a view that I have held since the campaign began and which has only strengthened as I watched it unfold.

 YouGov seems to believe everything that every 18-24 year old tells them about their intention to vote. Alas, I don't, and nor do I believe that the Brexit voting areas of Northern England and the Midlands will suddenly forget the insults that were hurled at them in the months after the Brexit referendum. If Brexit is your main aim in life then a vote for the Tories is the cast-iron way to pretty much guarantee that result.

Labour is doing well, there is no question about that. Hopefully, the Tory majority will be around the fifty seat mark, which is a bloody miracle when you consider the fact that some quite serious people thought that Labour was going to self destruct during this campaign.

You can understand their point of view, because let's face it, any party that elects a leader who is a teetotal vegetarian who once fucked Dianne Abbott is going to have an electoral mountain to climb that is even more massive than Diane Abbott herself. It is a sign of Labour's growing self-confidence that it can overcome those hurdles and present itself as the alternative party of government. The Liberal-Democrat and Greenie vote has been squeezed down and hopefully will be reduced some more by next week.

So, Labour has not only overcome its leader's image problems, it has also managed to demonstrate to all and sundry that it is the only national alternative to the Tories. At the end of the day, if anyone wants the Tories out, then voting Labour is the only way to achieve that aim.

I call that a pretty good result, even though it will not be enough to give Labour a victory this time around.

After Maria Gatland, Gerry McGivern Emerges as Another IRA Member the Tories Welcomed

Following right along from yesterday's re-outing of Maria Gatland as a senior local Tory, let's meet Gerry McGivern, who died at the ripe old age of 46 in Torquay, England, where he lived the final years of his life. His local Tory club were so sad to have to say goodbye to "Irish Gerry" as they called the lovable bomber and drug dealer that they lowered their club's Union Flag to half mast on the day of his funeral.

Irish Gerry, as we shall call him for the benefit of any Tories who may read this and feel fondness for their late member, was an active member of both the IRA and British Intelligence. Eventually, following the night when he broke into an old woman's house with a baseball bat, the IRA decided to drop his services, and following yet more disputes with them it seems they may have even decided to bump him off.

McGivern then coughed to his British handlers and a deal was done whereby he got the fairly light sentence of six years in prison, and the British agreed to quietly forget about the night when he helped blow a British soldier's legs off.

After his release he moved to Liverpool, and engaged in yet more lovable, roguish activity by flogging heroin to the local druggies. He served three years for that, left prison eventually and moved to Torquay where the Tories welcomed him with open arms as one of their own.

To be fair, and we must be fair even to Tories, Irish Gerry's past was only discovered after his death, so the party has a sort of get-out clause in his case.

The same cannot be said of Maria Gatland, who as Maria McGuire was a pretty senior figure indeed in the Provo's ranks. Not only that, but she wrote a book about her experiences, or rather one was ghost-written for her by a Sunday Times hack named Peter Gilman, who tried his best to make sure that she appeared as a sympathetic character to the book's readers.

I remember reading that book, To Take Arms: A Year in the Provisional IRA, back in the 1970s and thought at the time that there was a brittle, self-absorbed, middle class dilettante who didn't really understand street politics. It came as no surprise to learn that she has become a Tory since it is the natural home of people of her class.

What did surprise me was the way in which the Tories kept her in their fold after she was outed as a senior IRA member in 2008. First they went through the motions of suspending her in December 2008, then she was welcomed back into the fold just a month later in January 2009, and allowed to remain a Tory councillor, whereupon the voters of her leafy ward continued to return her to office at every election right up to the present day.

On one level you can understand why the Tories did that, as Gatland is genuinely one of them. In 2010, Gatland was reported as telling people how excited she was to attend a council meeting where a vote was taken that cost sixty local people their jobs.

Obviously not as excited as she was in her miniskirted heyday when she was plotting with the IRA to blow people up, but she was a fairly decent looker in those days so you can understand how she rose to near the top of the organisation via her willingness to be bedded by its then leader, so excitement came thick and fast. Today she appears as a tired old boot, so getting worked up about putting people on the cobbles is probably about the best she can hope for.

So, we have an ex-IRA man who went drinking with Tories in Torquay, and when he died, they lowered our country's flag in his honour. We also have a former IRA woman who became a Tory councillor and was allowed to remain one even when her past became known.  

That the Tories have the brass neck to condemn Jeremy Corbyn for talking to Sinn Fein back in the day and trying to make peace in Northern Ireland just makes their hypocrisy all the more risible

Please remember that when you cast your vote on the 8th June 2017.

Forget Corbyn and Sinn Fein: Meet the Senior Tory Who Was in the IRA

As the Tories attack Jeremy Corbyn for trying to negotiate with Sinn Fein, the IRA's political front back in the 1970s, it is time to remember that they have elected members in their party who were once senior figures in the IRA itself.

Meet Councillor Maria Gatland, who sits on Croyden Council. Under her maiden name of Maria McGuire she travelled to Amsterdam in 1971 to try and buy a shipment of arms from the Czechs to be used against British soldiers. The operation failed, but since Maria was by then polishing the knob of senior IRA man David O'Connell who went with her on the failed trip, he at least got to come home with his balls nicely empty and a big grin on his Fenian face.

Remember: Corbyn tried to make peace in Northern Ireland and the Tories welcome people in their ranks who tried to help the slaughter continue!

Now click here to read about another ex-IRA man that the Tories loved to have in their ranks!

Labour's Trust Problem

There are a lot of us who agree with this meme which is currently going the rounds like a steam powered ferret. Looking at the polls it is obvious that Labour has a floor to its vote of around thirty percent which nothing the Tories or anyone else can do will shift. The Lib-Dem and even the Green vote is being eaten into by Labour, as people realise that a vote for anything but Labour is actually a vote for the Tories.

Labour's manifesto is a dream document for many of us, with poll after poll showing that these are policies that clear majorities of the population agree with. Yet Labour cannot get much above its thirty percent floor, so what's going on?

Choosing a government is not the same as going to the Tesco website and selecting next week's groceries. The bulk of the population want to cast their votes every few years and then forget about politics until the next time rolls around. To do that they choose a party that they by and large agree with, that has an image that they like, and then they vote for it. Most people have little idea about the minutia of policy and expect that their party will more or less put forward policies that they approve of.

Image matters, so Labour gets a free ride on the NHS and benefits, with people assuming that the party will defend both. The Tories get their freebies from the economy, national defence and lower taxes. That was why they were able to get away with failing to reduce the deficit under Cameron, why John Major was able to privatise the army barracks and close down the military hospitals and why Thatcher got away with doubling VAT. People assume that even when the Tories do crappy things to the military or over the economy, they are still better than the alternative in those areas.

The best that Labour can do under present circumstances is to pick holes in Tory economic policies, and point out the fact that Labour's policies are far better costed and rely less on blind faith. Then hope that enough blokes in Walsall and enough birds in Nuneaton decide that, on balance, they will vote Labour next month.

It won't win Labour the election, that is out of the question, but if Labour can reach the near mid-thirty percent of votes cast then it is a base to stand on for the future.

Guest Posting: The Wankery that is Intersectioanality

 

 Tim Collard was one of our men in Peking for many years before becoming HM Consul-General in Hamburg until his retirement. He is fluent in both German and Mandarin and now forms a part of the Oxford Union in exile which meets up every Wednesday evening in an Edinburgh swill shop to discuss matters of great weight and drink beer.

If you have never heard of intersectionality, don't worry because most normal people haven't either. In a nutshell, intersectionality is the latest wanky idea from people who are supposedly several times discriminated against because of who they are. So a Black, disabled woman can claim to be triply discriminated against and thus triply able to pontificate to the rest of us. Now you know...

Just a brief point about ‘intersectionality’. Apart, of course from the obvious truth that anyone using the word seriously deserves to have their mental competence assessed at below zero, and, if in an academic institution, to be carried out of it by people in white coats and placed in a different sort of institution. 

Pain leads nowhere. Most of us have experienced it, either in mental form, in physical form or in the form of oppression. It’s horrible. But it hasn’t got much to teach us, except that it isn’t nice. It doesn’t give you any insights. It entitles you to sympathy and compassion, which includes being listened to. But it doesn’t make any of your perceptions objectively more valid than anyone else’s. 

But, if the perceptions of people who have suffered the pain of oppression merit a sympathetic hearing and practical compassion, that doesn’t mean they are any more deserving of objective respect as views. Abraham Lincoln argued cogently along these lines on the subject of slavery, which he nonetheless fought and died to defeat. 

I am opposed to the death penalty. But, you might ask, might I not take a different view if one of my loved ones were horribly murdered? Yes, of course it would. I’d like to see the bastard boiled in oil. But I would be the very last person whose view should be solicited on such an occasion. Please, please don’t ask me.

But, if the views of those who have suffered direct injustice should not be taken as a guide to the formulation of policy, how much importance should be attached to the views of those who can only say that they belong to the same gender, or to the same nationality, or to the same ethnic group, as someone who has suffered oppression? Easy answer. None whatsoever. Zilch. Nada. Sweet zip dangdoodley zeroesville Idaho (h/t tip Stephen Fry). And, as you people have no real skin in the game, it never seems to occur to you that pretending to support feminism or LGBT rights on the one hand and the rights of Islamic societies to enforce their rules on the other is just fucking ridiculous. But why should it? You’re just bloviating and trying to keep in with the crowd. 

And so I come to my peroration, in the tradition of the late Marcus Tullius Cicero. ‘Intersectionalists’, just fuck off, fuck off some more, and when you’ve fucked off as far as you can fuck, then keep on fucking off until there isn’t any more off to fuck. By then you have probably reached the outer walls of the universe, so just fuck off that wee bit more.

Uncle Ken Defends Labour on BBC Radio 5 Live

The BBC Radio 5 Live interview went reasonably well, and I asked a BBC fellow who was standing around to take the above photo. Sitting on the right is the luscious blonde interviewer, whose name escapes me at the moment. On her right is the Tory voter, in front of him is the Liberal-Democrat man and the woman next to him spoke for the SNP. The fat bastard next to her is yours truly, who actually looks sleek and slender compared to about half the men in Scotland.

Mrs SNP made the point several times that she is not actually a member of the party, however she turned up with her notebook that I noticed was chock full of discussion points and sound bytes. She mentioned before the interview started that she was involved with Women for Independence, which is an SNP front, so she's not a party member, but she is a wholly owned subsidiary.

We introduced ourselves and then Miss Luscious-Blonde interviewed Alex Salmond who was in Aberdeen. Speaking to him is a bit like wrestling a greased pig, which was why broad grins were seen on the faces of the three non-SNP interviewees.

Salmond finished dancing around the interviewer, we went to the news, and then we were supposed to be up. However, two journalists had been put in at the last minute so they took twenty minutes out of our time slot.

Eventually we were on and I had already decided that defending Labour was a waste of time, but trying to pull holes in the SNP wasn't - so I hit the Nats with both barrels. Nothing personal, folks, but you have fucked around with my disability benefit and reneged on your promise to raise tax on the rich to 50p in the pound.

I managed to forget the reason why I had agreed to go on the show, which was to plug my books, but what the Hell, I enjoyed the morning.

When it was all over Mrs SNP scampered off, and I suggested a pint or three to the two fellows. Amazingly enough, in a country that floats on a sea of beer they both made their excuses and left. Feeling thoroughly embarrassed on behalf of Scottish manhood, I as a Mancunian who has only lived here for a few years, sloped off to a pub to lift a jar on behalf of the men of a whole country.

Don't thank me: I was only doing my duty.

You can hear the whole show at this link. Click on the 10 May show, then jump forward to the 50 minute mark if you just want to hear the ten minute segment that I was involved with.

Uncle Ken Goes on the Wireless Today at 10.00am.

Tune in to Radio 5 Live this morning at 10.00am if you fancy listening to my dulcet tones. There will be a round table discussion involving four Edinburgh voters who are all pledged to vote for one of the four main parties.

As I understand it, we will each be asked a few questions, then we go over to an interview with Alex Salmond, followed by the round table discussion about him, his party, and whatever else comes up.

All this takes place in the Elephant House, an upmarket coffee shop and eatery where J.K. Rowling is supposed to have written some or all of the first Harry Potter novel. Coffee comes courtesy of Auntie Beeb, so I suppose we should be grateful for that.

I hope to plug my books and this blog. The only problem I have is finding something positive to say about today's Labour Party. Wish me luck.

If you can't tune in live then you can hear a recording of the show soon after transmission at this link.

The Joys of Betting on the General Election

To the bookies this morning to place some bets on the General Election, or at least to try to place them.

My first port of call was Coral who are offering odds of 8/1 for Labour to get between 200 and 249 seats. I figured that was worth a fiver of my money, but the clerk behind the counter just stared at me blankly, looked at his screen, then announced after pressing a few buttons and scrolling through a few screens, that he couldn't find a horse named General Election, and could I remember which racecourse it was at?

Having patiently explained that little problem he then tried to call his head office to confirm the odds, but couldn't get the phone to work, in spite of banging the receiver on the counter several times. I told him not to worry, and that I would call back the following day.

I crossed the street and went into a William Hill's as they are offering bets on individual constituencies. It took a few minutes to explain this to the clerk, but he got the idea eventually and agreed to call his main office to confirm the odds. Eventually I was able to place a fiver each on:

Tories to take Sheffield Hallam at 10/1. Yeah, I know, it's a long shot, but it's a prayer that Nick Clegg just gets left with his arse hanging out the window, and the Tories are the only ones who can do it.

Tories to take Westmorland and Lonsdale, an 8/1 long shot, but with rather more possibility to it than the first one. Tim Farron is the MP and for a party leader to lose his seat is pretty much unprecedented. That said, the Tories are spending a lot of money on the seat, it is in a Brexit area, so if there is going to be an upset it could happen there.

Labour to hold Burnley at 7/4. The Lib-Dems are the favourites for this seat, which strikes me as crazy. Burnley is in the Brexit heartland, and Labour are now a Brexit party. More importantly, sources in UKIP tell me that having won a county council seat last week, they feel confident that Burnley will be the seat where they can do rather better than just save their deposit. They also have money to spend in Burnley and a pretty active membership. All that together should prevent the Tories from coming through the middle, so Labour looks like a good bet for Burnley.

So I managed to place most of my bets, but I am left wondering that if bookies' clerks have to have a General Election explained to them, just how disengaged people are in this most crucial election?

Liberal Sex Scandals: Paddy Pantsdown, Jeremy Thorpe and the Spirit of Rinka, Woof! Woof!

A young fellow over at Facebook asked me if Paddy Ashdown became known as Paddy Pantsdown because of a homosexual scandal. I replied in the negative, since Pantsdown was created in 1992 as a result of getting involved in an extra-curricular leg over situation with his secretary five years earlier, and that secretary was very much a girl.

The confusion had come about because Jeremy Thorpe, a predecessor of Pantsdown as Leader of the Liberal Party had not only buggered a man, one Norman Scott, but had then tried to hire the most cack handed hitmen in Britain to kill him when Scott's persistent demands for money became insufferable.

All they managed to do was shoot dead Rinka, Scott's Great Dane, which was an animal, by the way, and not a well hung Scandinavian.

Eventually the whole sordid story came out and Thorpe and his gang were had up for attempted murder in 1979. 

Luckily for them, the prosecution had to rely on some fairly dubious characters, the judge was on their side, and the jury took the hint and found them all not guilty. Within days the late Peter Cook set up the judge in a masterpiece of satire that deserves another outing:

In the run-up to the trial we had the 1979 general election, which led Auberon Waugh to stand in Thorpe's constituency as the standard bearer of the Dog Lovers' Party. Alas for him, Thorpe took out an injunction to prevent distribution of his election address, but Waugh had published it as his weekly column in the Spectator. The magazine hastily withdrew as many copies as it could to comply with the injunction, but enough got out that, thanks to photocopiers, the address could see the light of day. Which is why people were telling each other: "Rinka is NOT forgotten. Rinka lives. Woof, woof. Vote Waugh to give all dogs the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

It emerged in the trial that Jeremy Thorpe was not a believer in the use of lube whenever he wished to exercise his pink oboe, because Norman Scott testified that he was forced to "bite the pillow and cry" when he was in receipt of that instrument. It is for this reason that the Liberal Democrats are still occasionally referred to as the Lubeless Dems even to this day, at least by me.

Now that the confusion between the two cases has been cleared up, it is important that I make it clear that I do not seek to influence your vote in any way. It may very well be that you believe that casting a ballot for a party that has been led by an admitted arse bandit who tried to hide the evidence of his banditry by having the witness bumped off, and then some years later by an illicit shagger is a vote for a decent and honourable party.

That is a matter for you and your conscience.

Vote Labour and Defend the Pension Triple Lock

Do you trust the scummy Tories to keep the triple lock on pensions? The fuckers have been talking for some time now about getting rid of it, and this election offers them the perfect opportunity to do what Tories enjoy the most: reducing yet more people to poverty.

 

Labour has pledged to keep the triple lock until 2025 at the earliest, so if you are in your early 60s like me and want to avoid a retirement spent in poverty then a vote for Labour is what the Americans call a no-brainer.

Labour's One Chance of Victory

In the pub tonight, chatting with two old cronies from days of yore, and we tried to start a conversation about the election that nobody wants to even discuss all that much. Will Labour manage to get over the line to put into effect these quite sane policies that feature on the above pledge card?

Probably not, since the Tory lead is an insurmountable twenty points. It will most likely be reduced, but there will still be enough for a tasty majority that will almost certainly attack the triple lock on pensions. As I am due to get mine in five years, and the other two shortly afterwards, it looks like a poverty stricken old age for us and millions of others.

Then I remembered many years ago when someone rang me at my then house in Mexico and announced that he represented Conservatives Abroad, or some such outfit, and did I want to register to vote so that I could help choose our next Prime Minister?

I replied that I would not wish to be so presumptuous as to try and influence Her Majesty's choice as to who Her next Prime Minster should be.

He did not get the joke. The utter fuckwit who claimed to be a Tory activist did not get the joke. I think I just put the receiver down on him after a few moments of silence on his part.

We decided that the only hope Labour has is if dickheads like my caller all those years ago are now running the Tory election campaign.

Then we started talking about something else...

General Election Called for June: Uncle Ken's First Thoughts

Subject to a vote in the Commons tomorrow we will have a general election on the 8th June 2017, a fact which has taken many of us by surprise. My immediate reaction is that the Tories are odds-on to win with an increased majority, Labour are equally certain to remain the official opposition, the Liberal Democrats will win a few seats and the SNP will lose a few.

Labour is now a party which supports Brexit, albeit not the hard version that the Tories now seem to want. Thus, if you are a leftist who voted against the EU last June, a vote for Labour this June makes sense. It is safe to return to the fold, in other words, as Brexit is a done-deal. I have always thought that the eventual agreement that will lead the UK out of the EU would be one that would satisfy nobody very much, but which we can all sort of live with.

In Scotland the Tories are clearly on a roll, and could take a handful of seats off the SNP. The SNP are in a bit of a bind as the country is not just divided along pro and anti European lines but also along pro and anti independence ones as well. This may very well be an election in which some Scottish voters decide to resolve those conundrums by casting their ballots for British parties, and reserving their SNP votes for the Holyrood elections.

Will the people turn out to vote across the UK? There is a feeling across the board that we are all a bit weary of elections, and June comes hard on the heels of May, which is when many of us will be expected to vote in the local elections. All of this comes after the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the UK general election in 2015, that was followed by the Scottish general elections in 2016 and then the Brexit vote later the same year.  I am a political enthusiast, but if I am getting weary of it all then God knows how the average punter feels.

We shall see what happens as the campaigns take off. My prediction is based on a reading of the situation today, but there is everything to play for, as there always is in a general election.