Pat Glass's first General Election leaflet, the one that comes free through the post, has arrived. It is a national party production with space for photographs of the candidate and of local scenes, and it mentions not a single policy. This candidacy is an insult to the electorate, of a piece with the comments of those who came on here at one time and stated in all seriousness that it was impossible for me to contest this seat because I was no longer a member of the Labour Party.
I was only able to contest the Parish Council seat that I had already occupied for eight years because I went to Consett Civic Centre in person and refused to leave until I had been handed the nomination papers, which they had flatly refused to send through the post. I went on to be re-elected with considerably more votes than Pat Glass, whose attendance at fully eight Parish Council meetings in the subsequent three years constitutes the sum total of her political experience.
According to her leaflet recently distributed before the Election was called, she does not want to be an MP at all. Based on her leaflet received today, she holds no political opinion whatever. "Local" and "born and bred in North West Durham" (as no one would ever say) leap out from the page. I have lost count of the number of local people, some of whom I could swear that I have never met but who clearly know who I am, who have come up to me and asked who she was.
Meanwhile, on frankly a much more serious note than this frivolity, some correspondence about the next of my long-expressed views that, not because of me but simply because sanity and common sense seem to be breaking out from time to time, are to become mainstream political opinions.
That capitalism is the most unconservative and anti-conservative force on earth? That American domination is no more acceptable that European federalism, and is in fact the force behind it? That public transport should be free at the point of use, with the bus and rail networks rebuilt?
The simple fact that New Labour, much of which has gravitated to Cameron, is academic Marxism, which long ago turned from economic to cultural means, but to the same ends? The simple fact that Cameron has turned his party into the preferred vehicle of the totally unreconstructed Hard Left, not as any sort of entryism, but openly and publicly on both sides?
What, dear, reader, do you think will be next? And why?
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Rod Liddle may be giving his support, but Peter Hitchens is being rather negative in my opinion:
ReplyDelete"An individual member of the House of Commons is one of the most powerless people in the country. Thanks to the whips, he has less freedom to speak his mind and act accordingly than an ordinary citizen.
"So, yes, start my own party. Easy, isn't it? You just go down to Ikea and buy a flat-pack Party, and then, after a few false starts, you assemble it. Then you put up 600-odd candidates, get treated as a serious force by the BBC and the media, and, without any need for money or broadcasting time, compete on equal terms with the two dead parties which nonetheless have Lord Ashcroft or the Trades Unions. Next thing you know, you're in government. No, that can't be right, can it? And it isn't. The bottomless silliness and thoughtlessness of people who say 'Start Your Own Party' reflects rather badly on them."
A pity.
(http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2010/04/a-riposte-to-tim-montgomerie.html)
You know perfectly well how you exercise this influence, and so does everyone who matters. Anyone who does not know, does not matter. What we cannot understand is why you want to jack it all in to become just another MP.
ReplyDeleteEven your worthy old scheme of appointing half a dozen Research Fellows in your office, and thus effectively running a think tank, will probably be impossible once these things are tightened up and all staff are employed by the House rather than by individual members.
Anonoymous 17:41, that's just Peter. People are for ever either writing to him to beg him to set up a party, or denouncing him in Cameroon fora for failing to do so. He rather tellingly says that he would like into the parliamentary process rather than he would like into the Commons. And there are two Houses.
ReplyDeleteHave you read 'The Rage Againt God'? Do. I will be posting on it at some point. And the chapter turning 'The Broken Compass' into 'The Cameron Delusion' is glorious. With all that going on, Peter would be driven to an early grave by the social work into which MPs are directed in order to fill up the time that they might otherwise spend introducing or scrutinising legislation. Up the corridor, on the other hand...
Can't see you doing the social work either, David. You have a point that that's not really what MPs are for. They used to do hardly any and definitely didn't spend every weekend in their constituencies. Churchill hardly ever visited his.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that people in the know knew you were planning a think tank in your office, no doubt courtesy of the Fees Office ie the taxpayer. Aren't you setting up a think tank anyway now?
Yes, but that is an entirely different project. And coming along rather well. Watch this space.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of being driven to an early grave, you are still getting over how many operations? Three? Four? Plus an embolism. All in the last two years, and you have not been well recently have you? All that does account for any lull in fundraising.
ReplyDeleteIf your main aim was to have the income to write books and have the other contributors paid as you staff - I think that is entirely worthy by the way, since it would contribute to the political debate - then it looks like you are setting up something along those lines anyway, so concentrate on that.
You wanted to be an MP for that and "introducing and scrutinising legislation". You would be better placed to do that "up the corridor". As you know, nobody seriously expects an elected second chamber to come about, so give your think tank a few years and use it as your base to get into Parliament that way. That's so much more you, My Lord.
I'll be very angry if you don't stand, David. But I'll understand. Everyone on the ground knows you are ill.
ReplyDeleteYou must be 20 years younger than Pat Glass and she will never try again at 57 or 58 to take her into her sixties. Still working in your sixties is not her world. By then the realignment will have happened and it looks likes you will have had an important role in it. So your day will come.
Win or lose, but either way be dead by Christmas? What's point of that? Bide your time, you have plenty of it.
If you had second and third preference votes, who would they go to?
I shouldn't answer that one, I know.
ReplyDeleteBut Watts Stelling, experienced, a really nice man and a very conscientious community politician, with many sound views and with a record of cross-party co-operation in the Derwentside days.
If I had to pick a third choice, then Owen Temple, strictly in spite of his party rather than because of it, since he does have some, though certainly not all, of those points in his favour.
At least you are now allowing up sincerely concerneed comments about your health, some of us have been trying to post them for months. "Who is Pat Glass?" might be the second question everyone now asks you but it is still not the first question.
ReplyDeleteWorrying news.
ReplyDeleteWhy were you appealing for people to sign your nomination paper only last Monday?
(http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=79625901823)
Why not? I haven't said that I am not doing it.
ReplyDeleteOther people think that I am too ill and should hang fire until next time (when any of Pat Glass, Watts Stelling or Owen Temple would retire), which will be after the realignment to which I should be devoting my energies through think tank work and the like.
That is their view.
We tell you to your face but you seem determined not to have it. It's your funeral. Literally.
ReplyDeleteThis all seems incredibly last-minute.
ReplyDeleteYou announced your intention to stand in this seat years ago, and you've been aware of the approximate date of the election for months. So why do you not have campaign funds, nominees and an army of eager volunteers already in place?
They should be out knocking on doors right now!
How do you know that they are not? Mind you, no one else is, either. Practically a week in. Political parties now have hardly any members, and most of those are old.
ReplyDeleteI have always been in a position to mount a campaign: deposit saved, point made, &c. But that is no longer good enough. The situation here is now too bleak for that. A gesture will not do.
I live in the same constituency and I haven't seen a canvasser since 1997, you are in the same company as everyone else here on that score. No one canvasses these days.
ReplyDeleteIt's true, the Tories have never had a hope in hell here but they always made the effort. They don't now, nobody does.
ReplyDeleteHow's the fund-raising going, then, David? Nearly there?
ReplyDeleteI'm not giving running totals on here, I'm too busy getting on with it.
ReplyDelete