Why we need a new start under a Labour Government.

Our national debt is the highest in peacetime history. Inflation is at its highest for 40 years. The tax burden is the highest it has been in 70 years. Most families have had no real terms wage rise in 12 years, and our growth, at Zero%, is the lowest in the G7. But don't worry, you'll get a new Prime Minister in October!

 Until then the person who has presided over this economic wrecking ball both as a Cabinet Minister and as the Leader of our country has graciously decided to stay in charge! No matter that 60 members of his government have resigned saying he is not fit to remain in office – this Prime Minister has decided he will become the "caretaker".

 Few words could suit Mr Johnson less. Care is the very opposite of what this man takes. He was reckless over parties at No 10. He was reckless to bulldoze through an international treaty only to find that neither he nor the people of Northern Ireland could live with it. He was reckless with PPE and contracts to cronies during Covid.

 But if he was reckless, others were complicit. And yet others were simple hypocrites. All those MPs who only last month voted in the 1922 Committee to keep the Prime Minister in office have been the very ones queueing up before the TV cameras to say that they were now resigning "for the good of the country". How cynical of anyone to think they had resigned in order to wipe their slate clean for a promotion by whoever is the next resident of No.10.

Every single Tory MP—every single one—should take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask themselves how we got here. They propped him up, they knew what he was like and they colluded in 12 years of stagnation, declining public services and empty promises. That is why on Wednesday evening I called publicly on TV a for a general election. A new start under a Labour Government.

This article appears in the Brent and Kilburn Times