For Our Own Security

We all know that there never was a Gatwick drone. But then, the Skripals never died, either. Some weapon of mass destruction, that. 

Yet the British Embassy in Moscow has lost so many staff that it is now barely viable, the British Consulate-General in St Petersburg has been closed, and the previously thriving British Council has been kicked out of Russia.

Now, though, you must never, ever mention the ridiculous pretext on which these acts of self-harm were inflicted. Once the biggest story in the world, it has become as if it never happened. The consequences, however, are still very much in place.

Both that pretext and those acts were insufficiently criticised by Jeremy Corbyn at the time, and they were egged on with demands for all-out nuclear war by 85 per cent of his party's MPs, on whose own logic Trident is therefore no deterrent at all, but who do of course have form, having obscenely cheered a war to the echo after Hilary Benn's best-forgotten speech on Syria.

Expect the same reaction to the impending ban on private drone ownership, and to the revival of the long list of "security" measures for which most Labour and almost all Conservative MPs have been itching in order to take away numerous civil liberties since the early 1990s, when Tony Blair repeatedly outdid Michael Howard while Shadowing him at the Home Office.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. It has become a local commonplace that I am on 30-30-30 with Labour and the Conservatives here at North West Durham, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post. I will stand for this seat, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.