Never Be Seen

I have many friends in the Green Party, as in all of them. Like several of the others, they have been trying to recruit me for decades.

I have never voted for them for anything, but then they have never contested the elections to Lanchester Parish Council, where my highly ecumenical voting pattern corresponds closely to the final result.

But I am not a Green. I am a Red.

Look back to 1870, to each of what were to become the New Deal United States, Social Democratic Western Europe, and the Soviet Bloc. Then look at each of those in 1970.

Neither laissez-faire economics, nor caring overly much about the fate of rare voles, had delivered electrification, or mass transportation, or decent accommodation, or proper sanitation, or universal vaccination, or space exploration.

Are we to deny to Indians, or to Chinese, or to Brazilians, the same progress that we ourselves have made, and instead leave them defecating in communal pits while waiting to die of cholera or typhus?

Are we to have the women of Africa continue to die, as the women of Europe did for thousands of years, from the fumes emitted by the open fires over which they cooked?

This has nothing to do with post-imperial guilt, which is contestable. This has everything to do with common humanity, which is not.

If you hear echoes here of the debates around hunting or whaling, then, while I am not quite sure that I agree with you, I do take your point.

In Britain, at least, Greens and their fellow-travellers need to be asked the Yes-No question: "Do you regret the defeat of the miners in 1985?"

Bringing us to the peculiar attempt by the Trump Wannabe Right to cast itself as the champion of coal.

Even in his own country, Donald Trump exists outside normal political categories. But I dare you to suggest bringing back the coal industry to anyone remotely on the Right over here. 

Whereas the Left's biggest annual event is a colossal rally in that cause, organised by a continuity trade union with no other permanent political objective.

At this year's, a video message from Bernie Sanders had to be corrected immediately from the platform by Ian Lavery, the Chairman of the Labour Party and the former President of the National Union of Mineworkers.

He reiterated that party's commitment to the application of clean coal technology, not to the abandonment of fossil fuels. When Jeremy Corbyn rose to speak, then there was no correction to that correction.

As Piers Corbyn pointed out at the time, Margaret Thatcher started all of this, which she did, as an excuse to destroy the NUM.

All Conservatives still agree with her, and see the destruction of the British coal industry as one of their party's greatest ever achievements, for all that it has condemned us to endless wars over Arab oil, and possibly also over Russian gas.

Sadly, most Labour MPs would also never go near the Durham Miners' Gala, or even know what it was.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need 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.