SATs Can CUK Off

As Labour announces its intention to abolish the hated SATs, see the supposedly Conservative Government scrambling to defend the legacy of the last Labour one, which it backed up to the hilt at the time. Jeremy Corbyn rarely, if ever, "voted with the Tories". They voted with the Blair Government when, as was not really all that often, he voted against it. And when he didn't, come to that.

The Loony Right think tank circuit that was personified to the point of satire by Jonathan Simons on this morning's Today programme was always able to pour any old idea into Tony Blair's empty head and guarantee that he would try and put it into practice. Nowhere did it do this more than in the field of Education, Education, Education.

It has less success with the vastly more intelligent and better-read Gordon Brown, but it still had quite a bit. Lest we forget that Brown's first act as Chancellor of the Exchequer had been to sign away democratic political control of monetary policy, a surrender that had previously only been advocated on the outermost fringes of the Hard Right, and never made by any Conservative Government. 

David Cameron was truly the Heir to Blair, as Michael Gove would have been, and would be, truly the Heir to Cameron. But that little world is having very little success with Theresa May, and it is inconceivable that Corbyn would have them in the room.

Indeed, it is now so desperate that it has set up its own political party (been there, done that), which its media outliers insist on portraying as moderate, mainstream, centrist and popular. They will continue to do so even after Change UK has failed to win a single seat in the European Parliament, and even after all of its MPs have lost their seats.

Those media types howled and howled at the Leveson Report. But they are now adamant that Julian Assange is "not a journalist". You see, he does not hold what is essentially their State license, with its strict condition of never publishing anything that might discombobulate a similarly licensed politician.

At the forthcoming European Elections, vote for Julian Assange. You can do that by voting for Corbyn's Labour Party, thereby giving Corbyn the European Election victory that neither Blair, nor Brown, nor Ed Miliband ever achieved. Or you can do it by voting for the Brexit Party of Nigel Farage, thereby giving the pro-Assange parties the first and second places nationally, with more than 50 per cent of the votes cast. I shall probably do the former, but either will do, so long as it delivered that overall result.

And you hardcore Remainers, of whom there are a lot in the country that now has the largest and best-organised pro-EU movement in Europe, vote for the Liberal Democrats rather than for the CUKs. All of the CUKs' MPs were elected on a manifesto commitment to leave the Single Market and the Customs Union, whereas, much as I disagree with them, the Lib Dems are honest Remainers elected on that ticket. 

Only three CUK MPs have ever been Ministers, and while one of those did briefly attend Cabinet, she was never a member of it. By contrast, eight current Lib Dem MPs have been Ministers, and three of those have served in the Cabinet, two of them for the five years that began at the Election that brought Chuka Umunna and Luciana Berger into the House of Commons for the first time.

The Lib Dems opposed the Iraq War, and all of their current MPs who were MPs in 2003 voted against it. All the CUK MPs who were MPs in 2003 voted in favour of the Iraq War, and their Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Defence, Mike Gapes, vigorously defends that war to this day.

Change UK, you see, sees itself as optimistic, but in reality it is motivated by the rage and bitterness of the people who are economically comfortable, socially confident, and culturally dominant, but who have never attained the political hegemony that they think was promised to them by Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.

Well, no, they haven't. Boo, hoo. What is more, the Hard Remain path into Parliament, and it does exist, goes via the circle that begins in academia and then passes through schoolteaching, social work, charities, and independent wealth, bringing it back round to academia again. In a word, the Lib Dems.

They are the voice of the people who will vote at elections for the most pro-EU candidate on the ballot paper. They could not have less interest in tired caricatures of Thatcherism and New Labour, "thrusting" and "go-getting" and "blue skies thinking" all over the place. Again it is in the area of education policy that the irreconcilable difference is most apparent. The Lib Dems have also just announced their intention to abolish SATs.

More broadly, the key intellectual tools for political advancement are rapidly becoming heterodox economics, especially Modern Monetary Theory and certain forms of Marxism, together with Classics, especially Latin. Although not necessarily in that order. Almost everyone has to teach themselves those things. They are certainly never going to come up on SATs. But that is no longer a particularly difficult thing to do. The basement and back bedroom Assanges of Left and Right are in the ascendant. The knuckle-dragging CUK Boys and their WAGS, such as have organised the demand to extradite Assange to Sweden, are in steep decline.

So vote Labour for Jeremy Corbyn and Julian Assange. Failing that, then vote for the Brexit Party for Julian Assange. Or if you absolutely must, then vote Lib Dem against the CUKs. Here in the North East, we might well end up with one of each, as we ended up with one of each of Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems in 2004.

Beyond that, another hung Parliament is coming, 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.