Friday 31 May 2019

Elective Mute

As Julian Assange is being poisoned and tortured to death, hear the deafening silence of the Great Hope of the Left, the Chosen One, Laura Pidcock.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. I need £150 as soon as possible, to register a new party.

And even without that, 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.

No Longer Categorise?

If this is not an illness, then why does it need medical treatment? Which other examples of perfect health should be on the NHS, and why?

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. I need £150 as soon as possible, to register a new party.

And even without that, 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.

Polling Cards

Fanned out into seats, today's poll showing the Brexit Party in the lead would in fact give a General Election victory to the Lib Dems. Unless you really believe that that is going to happen, then treat that poll with the most extreme caution. 

Meanwhile, the coronation quietly but determinedly approaches of a Conservative Leader who was a Remainer, who has already openly refused to serve in a No Deal Cabinet, who has been in both MI6 and the pre-Corbyn Labour Party, and who was rather more recently courted to join the Lib Dems. If the next Leader of the Nine Per Cent Party is not him, then it will be someone as like him as possible.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. I need £150 as soon as possible, to register a new party. And even without that, 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.

Crucial and Telling

My friend has been back in touch, with what he calls, "a very telling series of exchanges between Emma Picken of LAAS and CAA and Adam Wagner (of the EHRC)." As he puts it:

Now, consider that this is Emma Picken, a non-Jew, giving Adam Wagner, a Jew, a very public dressing down on the issue of antisemitism.

If you dig into the series of exchanges it boils down to her flipping her lid because he was unwilling to accept that ANY criticism of Israel is antisemitic.

Whilst Wagner is a Zionist and Corbyn hater, he also has a mask he must wear in public to allow him to operate.

Emma Picken is such an absolute raving loon, she couldn't understand that there is a clear distinction between what Adam says in public, and what he really believes.

In private, they're both on the same page, Israel is sacrosanct, and to speak ill of it is unacceptable. 

The most crucial and telling Tweets are quoted below, and are at the time of this email still visible at the above link:

"Adam, why are you doing this? If I withdraw from the complaint against labour it collapses is that what you want?"

"Delete your thread. You have no idea how angry I am you've endorsed theis horseshit, and as you've just assisted with a complaint based very largely on my hard work, you need to urgently rethink." 

"Adam. I really think this series of tweets is the most disgusting thing I have ever read from a supposed ally. For a legal professional to endorse that sh*t is beyond contempt. Who's evidence did you think went into the EHRC complaint? That's right. Ours."

Something rotten is afoot. The initial preliminary investigation, and now this actual EHRC investigation, has been touted all over the media, and yet nobody outside of a small cabal of Zionist agitators has seen this evidence.

This scurrilous nonsense is being used to traduce Labour, and yet nobody seems to have actually taken a few minutes to see who is driving it, and ask what motivations they may have beyond those that they so loudly proclaim. 

Emma Picken is no friend of the Jewish community, she is an ally and fanatical supporter of ultra-Zionist Jews. Those Jews who disagree with her she will excoriate, threaten, and even accuse of antisemitism. 

It needs to be asked what power over Adam Wagner does Picken have, that she can bitchslap him all over Twitter, and he does nothing but grovel in apology?

This Is No Time For Suspension

Imagine that Pete Willsman had said that about the Russians. No one would have batted an eyelid, despite the total lack of evidence. Yet the evidence of Israeli, and Saudi, and increasingly also Emirati, interference in British politics is incontrovertible.

How did Willsman say anything remotely controversial? Rabbis of different denominations literally do not speak to each other. Someone with all of their email addresses organised that round robin against Jeremy Corbyn, and there is really only one body in that position. Yes, the embassy of a foreign state.

As for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. But then, since it employs Adam Wagner, what else could anyone possibly have expected but racism to the core? To whom does one complain? Who guards The Guardian?

No, Willsman's words would have been uncontentious, despite the fact that they would have been totally false, if he had uttered them about Russia, or increasingly also about China. While any suggestion that Russia or China were torturing or poisoning the man who had exposed their war crimes would be huge news, even if there were in fact no torture, no poison, and no war crimes.

By the starkest of contrasts, Julian Assange is being tortured and poisoned to death before our very eyes. Yet Corbyn says nothing, while his party suspends Willsman from membership. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it.

I need £150 as soon as possible, to register a new party. And even without that, 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.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 38

It has now been more than eight weeks since the jury in my trial, the third attempt at one, was discharged.

The previous day, the star prosecution witness had been sent away to come up with the only piece of evidence, a single email that no one had ever asked to see until then.

As soon as they did, then he never reappeared on his video link from the United States, and the jury was discharged.

More than eight weeks later, that email, a perfectly simple thing to find, has still not turned up. It does not exist.

It is no wonder that we longer have even so much as a date for a Case Management Hearing, still less for a trial. There is no case against me. None.

But this post will appear every day until further notice.

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.

Schoolgirl's Record of Achievement Watch: Day 38

It is now more than two years since the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party effectively abolished the Constituency Labour Party in North West Durham by denying it any role in the selection of its parliamentary candidate. It then imposed a 29-year-old who had never set foot here, and of whom next to no one here had ever heard.

Soon afterwards, she lost her seat on Northumberland County Council. I was present when she received that news, at the count for Durham County Council, where she was being introduced as the all-done-and-dusted Prospective Parliamentary Candidate to stalwarts who did not even know her name, but several of whom had already bought me drinks.

For some years by then, certain of them had been introducing me at funerals as, "The man who should have been our MP." Everyone does that now, and there no longer even needs to have been a death. They also call me "Speedboat", as in, "Here's what you could have won."

But I am a generous old soul. So I invite in the comments specific examples of the achievements of Laura Pidcock MP. This post will appear daily until the second anniversary of the 2017 General Election.

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.

Thursday 30 May 2019

God Is Gone Up

Allelúja, allelúja. Ascéndit Deus in jubilatióne, et Dóminus in voce tubæ. Allelúja.

Reach For The Stars

If you are not watching The Planets, then you should be.

Life is the geological force that shapes the Earth, and the emergence of human cognition fundamentally transforms the biosphere, not least by the uniquely human phenomenon of economic growth, so that human mastery of nuclear processes is beginning to create resources through the transmutation of elements, enabling us, among other things, to explore space and to exploit the resources of the Solar System.

Yet Mother Gaia reigns supreme, and we are expected to fight wars for Her even while, under Her petticoats, we shiver and starve in the dark. But Vladimir Vernadsky and Krafft Ehricke will yet have their day.

For all her enthusiastic endorsement by Owen Jones, the views of Laura Pidcock on Vernadsky or Ehricke remain as unknown as her views on any of the 11 subjects of the famous Pidcock's Paragraph: Antonio Gramsci, Max Shachtman, Friedrich von Hayek, Milton Friedman, Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, Plato, Thucydides, Xenophon, Machiavelli, and Nietzsche.

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.

Where The Money Is

Tuition fees again? Oh, well, if we must. But I would work with all my might to ensure that apprentices and trainees enjoyed the same benefits as were enjoyed by their peers in further and higher education, and vice versa.

I would do that while promoting the understanding that we either funded higher education all the way up to doctoral level or we charged fees at every stage (with a very strong preference for the former), and while guaranteeing that the training and other standards for the private sector to match were set by national and municipal public ownership, itself reformed towards greater democracy and accountability. Behind all of this, and taking care of the question of maintenance, would be the Universal Basic Income and the Jobs Guarantee.

Like adult social care, and like the extra £350 million per week for the NHS, whether or not Boris Johnson lied about it, this or anything else would be perfectly affordable once we had returned to the understanding, which was universal and implicit before Margaret Thatcher came along, that a sovereign state with a free-floating fiat currency had as much money as it chose to give itself. As much as anything else, it can pay off all of its own debts in an instant.

Within and under that, both fiscal and monetary policy were and should be under democratic political control in order to control inflation, which like curing unemployment is a perfectly simple thing to do, and in order to encourage certain patterns of behaviour while discouraging others. In all fairness to Thatcher, she never signed away democratic political control of monetary policy. That was Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, although it could be taken back as easily as it was given away.

But not until a Prime Minister who thought that running a country was the same as running a house did anyone, or at least anyone who mattered, think that taxation paid for government spending, so that public money was in fact "taxpayers' money". No one who knows the first thing about the money supply has ever imagined that for one second, yet it is astonishing how that blatantly obvious fallacy has taken hold of the popular imagination.

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.

Strictly Business

I refuse point blank to be older than the Prime Minister at my age. But Matt Hancock is angling for Chancellor of the Exchequer this time round. His selling point is that he is pro-business. I hope that he is. But I doubt it.

A No Deal Brexit would hold no terrors for Jeremy Corbyn, but it is the only thing that terrifies the people who fund the Conservative Party. Corbyn himself certainly does not. They have more than survived Governments well to the left of anything that he proposes these days, and they do business in countries where much of what he envisages is already in place.

Another hung Parliament is practically certain. The Conservatives had a larger poll lead at the beginning of the last General Election campaign than anyone gives them today, and look how that turned out. In any case, there would have to be another General Election within five years. Whereas a No Deal Brexit would be forever, or at any rate for an awful lot longer than one Parliament.

Moreover, unlike the unions and Labour, they have no sentimental attachment to their party. They have no qualms about turning off the cash tap. It is not a familial relationship, as Labour has with the unions. It is strictly business. Unlike the BBC, they know perfectly well that nothing proposed by Corbyn otherwise exists only in Venezuela. There are things on Corbyn's To Do list that do exist in Venezuela. But those things also exist in, say, Germany. And the people who fund the Conservative Party are desperate to remain in a Single Market and a Customs Union with Germany.

Then again, what if the full Brexit that everyone knows that Corbyn would really prefer were indeed to come to pass? Those companies would be at the front of the queue for State Aid, as they always were in the past. And why not? If New Labour was, and the Conservatives are perennially, "pro-business", then that was not and is not based on any identifiable experience of it. The three Leaders of New Labour were a barrister who had barely practised, a perpetual student, and a man who had never worked outside the private sector.

Meanwhile, there have been 12 Leaders of the Conservative Party since the War, and beyond shareholding, or being married to businessmen, none of them has had any business background worth mentioning, if at all. They have had stopgap jobs and what have you, but nothing more than that, and not even that in some cases. Nearly half have been beneficiaries of the massive public subsidies to landowning.

Winston Churchill, toff. Anthony Eden, toff. Harold Macmillan, toff enough. Alec Douglas-Home, toffee toffee toff toff. Ted Heath, full-time politician since university. Margaret Thatcher, millionaire's wife. John Major, full-time politician all his adult life. William Hague, full-time politician since childhood. Iain Duncan Smith, paid by the Army to go away. Michael Howard, full-time politician since university, more than 40 years earlier. David Cameron, toff. Theresa May, millionaire's wife.

Where is the business experience there? Put together, they have all had less than Jon Lansman has. Use that as some context for the claims that Labour's worker-director proposals would put "a Momentum cadre on the board" of every company with 250 or more employees. Such a person might contribute far more usefully than anyone who had led the Conservative Party since 9th October 1940.

Worker-directors were an idea that the Old Left never used to like. Later than the 1970s, they were first floated in anything like the mainstream by Theresa May. But she then proceeded to come up with nothing in order to give the concept any practical effect. So John McDonnell has done it instead. The last thing that May's party can do is complain, or even object.

The pro-business tradition came down to the Attlee Government from the ultraconservative figures of Colbert and Bismarck, via the Liberals Keynes and Beveridge, and it held sway in Britain until the Callaghan Government's turn to monetarism in 1977.

That tradition corresponds closely but critically to the Hamiltonian American System as expanded by the American School, a pro-business tradition that between the 1860s and the 1970s worked to make the United States the world's largest economy, with the world's highest standard of living, culminating in the glorious achievements of the New Deal, which in turn made possible the rise and triumph of the Civil Rights movement.

That was achieved, by Democrats and Republicans alike, through the strict division between investment banking and retail banking, with large amounts of federal credit (in Britain, that would be central government credit), at low interest rates and over a long term, to build great national projects, notably enormous expansions in infrastructure, which then paid for themselves many times over. There were pro-business tariffs and subsidies, and there was a pro-business National Bank to promote the growth of productive enterprises rather than speculation. Britain and America both need a lot more of this today. North West Durham needs it more than most.

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.

Of Crooks and Cranks

Take out the crooks, and only the cranks would be left. 

Crook Number One is already due to stand trial. Crooks Numbers Two and Three, in either order, will be Michael Gove, over his expenses, and Jeremy Hunt, over pretty much everything that he has ever done. First at Culture and then at Health, Hunt was such a complete crook that people genuinely stopped noticing. Does one notice the air? There are a couple more crooks besides those three, but in the end only the cranks need to be left. And then, let the freak show begin. 

Although why the Queen or anyone else ought to honour the result of it, I have no idea. John Major, Gordon Brown and Theresa May were chosen by the body of MPs that had an overall majority in the House of Commons. David Cameron had to wait five years as Leader before a General Election made him Prime Minister. Only a General Election could make Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister.

So, either the House of Commons or the electorate, then. By contrast with either of those, the membership of a political party is of no constitutional significance whatever, and in itself it has no business choosing the Prime Minister. It has never done so before. Not once.

I almost hope that it does land us with Boris Johnson. He would not last very long, and it would be a fitting end to the Thatcher-Blair Era, which has delivered the exact opposite of everything that people at least chose to pretend that Thatcher and Blair ever promised. 

An Old Etonian Prime Minister? Why not? But a buffoonish thug and a thuggish buffoon whose only qualification to be Prime Minister was that he was an Old Etonian and a member of the Bullingdon Club? That would not have happened before 1979 and 1997, which are still the Year Zeros of most Conservative and all Labour MPs respectively.

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.

Wagging The Dog

Hello,

We have received a complaint regarding your account, @davidaslindsay, for the following content.

Tweet ID: 1133395803194777600 Tweet Text: Does @jeremycorbyn really have those Irish, Middle Eastern and other connections? If so, then the members and the senior staff of @EHRC need to be visited at home. The Boys might usefully begin with @AdamWagner1. #EHRC #Antisemitism #LabourAntisemitism [url]

We have investigated the reported content and could not identify any violations of the Twitter Rules (https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311) or applicable law. Accordingly, we have not taken any action at this time.

Sincerely,

Twitter 

Oh, the insolence that I am having to endure on Twitter from Shamima Wagner and from those who, like her, are merely provisional British Citizens, and liable to be denaturalised at a stroke of the Home Secretary's pen. Yet they think that the Police are their private army. Well, it turns out that they are not. And oh, what crybabies the Shamimas are, having been denied their own way for the first time in their lives.

There can be no confidence in the Equality and Human Rights Commission while Adam Wagner has any association with it. A full-time anti-Corbyn maniac with no apparent need to work, he has been appointed as an act of pure political interference by the Israeli Embassy, and of course in order to see off the threat that he and his colleagues might ever have to pay any tax.

Since it has little or no power to enforce anything, the EHRC should be told to get lost. It is the most perfectly Blairite institution, in which the limits of political discourse are to be determined by a self-perpetuating oligarchy of London Jewish lawyers, ultra-liberal elitist at home and ultra-hawkish racist abroad, with everyone accepting that that was how it obviously ought to be. The 3.32 per cent of the vote for Change UK ought to be the end of that kind of thing.

As a mixed-race person, I certainly have no confidence in a body the Chairman and the Chief Executive of which, just for a start, both believe as a point of principle that mixed-race people should not have been conceived. But that would be mild compared to Wagner. No doubt he would gas us. He feels intimidated? Threatened? Not like a Palestinian child or that child's grandmother, he doesn't.

Alas, the EHRC has decided not to investigate the Conservative Party for Islamophobia, thereby declining to create a majority in this Parliament to abolish the EHRC. But give it time. And since everyone who is in any way associated with it seems to be as rich as Croesus and to have another country to go to, always the same country in every case, then none of them could have any real cause for complaint if the thing were indeed to go the way of Alastair Campbell.

I repeat my challenge to Adam Wagner to contest North West Durham against me, presumably for Change UK or whatever it had become by then. But of course he won't, the cowardly little bully. If he did, though, then I would put up even if I had raised only the £500 deposit. By the way, there does seem to be problem with putting up Julian Assange at Walthamstow, alongside George Galloway at Birmingham Yardley, so we shall be needing another candidate there, perhaps a Palestinian.

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.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 37

It has now been more than eight weeks since the jury in my trial, the third attempt at one, was discharged.

The previous day, the star prosecution witness had been sent away to come up with the only piece of evidence, a single email that no one had ever asked to see until then.

As soon as they did, then he never reappeared on his video link from the United States, and the jury was discharged.

More than eight weeks later, that email, a perfectly simple thing to find, has still not turned up. It does not exist.

It is no wonder that we longer have even so much as a date for a Case Management Hearing, still less for a trial. There is no case against me. None.

But this post will appear every day until further notice.

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.

Schoolgirl's Record of Achievement Watch: Day 37

It is now more than two years since the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party effectively abolished the Constituency Labour Party in North West Durham by denying it any role in the selection of its parliamentary candidate. It then imposed a 29-year-old who had never set foot here, and of whom next to no one here had ever heard.

Soon afterwards, she lost her seat on Northumberland County Council. I was present when she received that news, at the count for Durham County Council, where she was being introduced as the all-done-and-dusted Prospective Parliamentary Candidate to stalwarts who did not even know her name, but several of whom had already bought me drinks.

For some years by then, certain of them had been introducing me at funerals as, "The man who should have been our MP." Everyone does that now, and there no longer even needs to have been a death. They also call me "Speedboat", as in, "Here's what you could have won."

But I am a generous old soul. So I invite in the comments specific examples of the achievements of Laura Pidcock MP. This post will appear daily until the second anniversary of the 2017 General Election.

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.

Wednesday 29 May 2019

Let's Get This Party Started

The Brexit Party did not take 49,687 votes in County Durham, or sweep the board from South Yorkshire to South Wales, by being Thatcherite. Yet its General Election manifesto will no doubt be precisely that.

In any case, it has already sold out by giving up on its one existing policy, that of a Clean Brexit, in favour of an incompatible demand for a role in negotiating the terms of a Dirty Brexit.

A General Election could come at any moment, and it will have to come at some point. It will certainly result in another hung Parliament, and we need our people to hold the balance of power.

Therefore, we need £150 to register a party of family values through full employment and strong public services, and of international peace through national sovereignty. We already have a name, but the likes of Oliver Kamm would hijack it if we let it be known before registration.

A crowdfunding page will be set up in the next few days, Crown Prosecution Service or no Crown Prosecution Service, and Adam Wagner or no Adam Wagner. But we need only £150, so if anyone were in a position to give that directly (this would not need to be declared publicly), then please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

What A Wag

Adam Wagner has called the Police on me, so I have reported him for wasting Police time (I require a crime number), and I have challenged him to contest North West Durham against me, presumably for Change UK or whatever it had become by then. But of course he won't, the cowardly little bully. If he did, though, then I would put up even if I had raised only the £500 deposit.

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.

RIP Walter Wolfgang

Yes, Alastair Campbell, we do indeed remember the Blair years.

Transferable Votes

All the best people have been expelled from the Labour Party. And now, so has Alastair Campbell. Frankly, I doubt that he has voted Labour in 10 years. At least under Jeremy Corbyn, and probably also under Ed Miliband or even Gordon Brown, those rushing to defend Campbell have also voted Labour only when voting for themselves, or for their close relatives, or for their very close friends.

Campbell and his supporters might now join the Conservative Party, thereby acquiring the right to vote for the next Prime Minister. Those pointing out that there was no General Election when Gordon Brown or Theresa May took over should ask themselves how much good that did either of them in the end.

Moreover, their parties had overall majorities in the House of Commons at the time, and each of them had effectively been the unanimous choice of the party's MPs, since no one else had picked up enough support to force a contest. Neither of those things will apply in this case.

Most Labour MPs never wanted Jeremy Corbyn as Leader, and they still do not, whereas the members did and they still do. But he will never become Prime Minister without having led Labour at least to the status of the largest party in the Commons. The voters will have the last word.

By contrast, why should the Queen honour the choice of the tiny Conservative Party membership, over and above that of most Conservative MPs, no more than a handful of whom favour any one of the ever-increasing array of Leadership candidates, and most of whom are strongly opposed to Boris Johnson?

In any case, the really significant Leadership Election this summer is elsewhere, for the de facto Leadership of Remain populism, which is what the Liberal Democrat vote last week can objectively be called. Change UK said that they were not populists, and how very right they have turned out to have been. But anyone who has ever campaigned either alongside or against the Lib Dems knows that that is exactly what they are.

They have identified a large popular base that believes both in Remain for its own sake, and in what it perceives to be represented by Remain. To lead that bloc is a role as important as those which are correspondingly filled, also beyond their party responsibilities, by Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage respectively. Such are the three partially overlapping tendencies that really matter in British politics today.

Their failure to pick up a seat in the North East, with enough votes to have won one anywhere else, might cause the Lib Dems to stop and consider the panacea effects, or otherwise, of Proportional Representation. When their Holy Grail, the Single Transferable Vote, was introduced for Scottish local elections, then their number of council seats in Scotland went down.

Even under First Past the Post, though, 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.

Small Change UK

Apparently, it costs only £200,000 to bring a private prosecution for misconduct in public office. I am genuinely surprised at that. I had expected a figure five times that size.

£200,000 would be small change to the unions and others against the members and the senior staffers of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the very sore electoral base of the crashed and burned Change UK.

And how hard could it be to raise £200,000 against defendants including a former Director of Public Prosecutions? Alison Saunders must have even more enemies than her co-defendant, Simon Henig, but hers must have far more money quite literally lying around, should anyone be minded to go round and collect it.

Boris Johnson serves few useful purposes. But planting these seeds in the right minds may yet turn out to have been one of them.

Still Right

The Labour Left's only serious candidate for Deputy Leader would be Chris Williamson, and he remains suspended accordingly, although he also remains a tireless campaigner.

But in any case, if the Labour Party is to be led from the Left, as so many of us in the wider Labour Movement earnestly desire, and as the Labour Party membership is certain to ensure for many years to come, then the Deputy Leadership needs to be held by the traditional Right, redefined in historically accurate terms as the only right wing of the Labour Party.

Tom Watson was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party at the same time and by the same people as elected Jeremy Corbyn to the Leadership. If the Left, as such, had a Deputy Leadership candidate, then it was Angela Eagle. 

In choosing instead the traditional Right made flesh, then those who at the same time gave a landslide victory to Corbyn knew exactly what they were doing. They were right then, and they are still right now. Corbyn, Watson, and their respective supporters all need to bear this in mind, and act accordingly.

The Language of Internationalism

Michael Gove and I have mutual friends. I have no difficulty in believing that he is charming in private, as is also said of Peter Mandelson and of Norman Tebbit, because politicians with reputations for "niceness" are complete and utter nightmares in real life. But Gove's proposal to give free British citizenship to EU nationals is as racist as the EU itself. Why to them, and not to anyone else? In the words of Barbara Castle:

"This, then, is the new internationalism. A selective relationship with the rest of the world, controlled and dictated by a powerful European bloc. And what kind of internationalism is it that says that henceforth this country must give priority to a Frenchman over an Indian, a German over an Australian, an Italian over a Malaysian? This isn't the language of internationalism … it is Euro-jingoism."

It amazes me, and not much does that, that your right to vote in Britain can be determined by whether or not your country is a member of certain international bodies, which it may leave at any moment (certainly in the case of the Commonwealth), thereby disenfranchising you. Parliamentary candidates should have to be British Citizens in Great Britain, or British or Irish Citizens in Northern Ireland, but everyone legally resident should have the vote, and indeed the right to stand in local elections. Why not?

Pending that, however, I can find nothing to prevent a Commonwealth citizen resident in the United Kingdom from being a parliamentary candidate while on remand. Assuming that that is indeed possible, and with George Galloway taking care of Birmingham Yardley (he cannot yet say yes because of his work, but he has never said no), then over to Julian Assange at Walthamstow.

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.

Speaking Up

John Bercow may not be going just yet, but he will have to go eventually, and the plan to install Harriet Harman as Speaker is still very much alive.

Since the middle of the 1990s, I have been trying to get the story out about Harman and the Paedophile Information Exchange. I have paid a terrible journalistic and political price for it, but I have no regrets. 

Media that always knew about it simply ignored the whole thing, banning me from their websites and what have you, until a period of no more than two weeks when they needed to distract attention from Patrick Rock. 

Normal service was rapidly resumed, and it has continued ever since. No one has done more on this issue than I have. 

Even were Harriet Harman already the Speaker of the House of Commons, then I would oppose her reelection at the start of each Parliament.

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.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 36

It has now been eight weeks since the jury in my trial, the third attempt at one, was discharged.

The previous day, the star prosecution witness had been sent away to come up with the only piece of evidence, a single email that no one had ever asked to see until then.

As soon as they did, then he never reappeared on his video link from the United States, and the jury was discharged.

Eight weeks later, that email, a perfectly simple thing to find, has still not turned up. It does not exist.

It is no wonder that we longer have even so much as a date for a Case Management Hearing, still less for a trial. There is no case against me. None.

But this post will appear every day until further notice.

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.

Schoolgirl's Record of Achievement Watch: Day 36

It is now more than two years since the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party effectively abolished the Constituency Labour Party in North West Durham by denying it any role in the selection of its parliamentary candidate. It then imposed a 29-year-old who had never set foot here, and of whom next to no one here had ever heard.

Soon afterwards, she lost her seat on Northumberland County Council. I was present when she received that news, at the count for Durham County Council, where she was being introduced as the all-done-and-dusted Prospective Parliamentary Candidate to stalwarts who did not even know her name, but several of whom had already bought me drinks.

For some years by then, certain of them had been introducing me at funerals as, "The man who should have been our MP." Everyone does that now, and there no longer even needs to have been a death. They also call me "Speedboat", as in, "Here's what you could have won."

But I am a generous old soul. So I invite in the comments specific examples of the achievements of Laura Pidcock MP. This post will appear daily until the second anniversary of the 2017 General Election.

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.

Tuesday 28 May 2019

Militant Tendencies

Who cares about the election to lead the Fifth Party? Even the winner cannot expect to be Prime Minister long enough to do anything with or about anything. By the way, although of course it still beat Change UK, the Conservative Party came sixth here in County Durham. Sixth. Did it do even worse than that anywhere else? Do please let me know.

There are three tendencies that matter in British politics today. One is the desire for a more egalitarian economic policy and for a more peaceable foreign policy. Another, partially overlapping with the first, is the desire for Brexit, both in itself and for what it is seen to represent. And the third, also partially overlapping with the first, is the desire for Remain, both in itself and for what it is seen to represent. 

Those three became prominent in rapid succession, although nevertheless in that order. But of course each of them really goes back many years. And none of the three tendencies is confined to any one party. There is a reason why, even in calling for a second referendum, Labour still will not declare for one side or the other.

But the de facto Leader of the first tendency is of course Jeremy Corbyn, the man who called it into being as a coherent political force. And the de facto Leader of the second tendency is of course Nigel Farage, the man who called it into being as a coherent political force. Who, though, is the de facto Leader of the third tendency? 

Over to the Leadership Election that will really matter this year, which is the Liberal Democrat one. It is quite possible that there will be more voters in that than in the Conservative Leadership Election. Every candidate needs to make it crystal clear that he or she will have nothing to do with either Alastair Campbell or Change UK. Think of Charles Kennedy, and think on.

The Brexit Party, meanwhile, has already sold out. It will still win the Peterborough by-election. But it was never going to come up with a manifesto on which Ann Widdecombe and Claire Fox could both have contested a General Election, led by Nigel Farage while supported by George Galloway. And in any case, it has now given up on its one existing policy, that of a Clean Brexit, in favour of an incompatible demand for a role in negotiating the terms of a Dirty Brexit. 

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.

The Most Distressful Country?

Martina Anderson has just topped the poll in Northern Ireland. But 25 years ago, she was in Durham Prison, as one of only two female Category A prisoners in England at the time; the other, Ella O'Dwyer, had been arrested, tried and convicted with her and with others including Patrick Magee, the Brighton Bomber. 

In the meantime, Anderson has served on the Policing Board, and also as Junior Minister in the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. The First Minister when she was in his Office was Peter Robinson.

Martina Anderson, Policing Board member, Minister in the Office of Peter Robinson, and poll-topper in Northern Ireland as a whole, who was arrested, tried and convicted with Patrick Magee, the Brighton Bomber. Claire Fox, for whom most of the North West's more than a million Tories have just voted. Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, who led their party to 40 per cent of the vote at the last General Election, forcing a hung Parliament.

Anybody would think that, even if there were still people who dimly remembered that there had ever been a war in Northern Ireland, then nobody cared. Anybody would think that even mentioning it about an opponent were now considered downright ill-mannered, and were liable to prove downright counterproductive at the polls.

Claret Clarity

The Liberal Democrats need to make it crystal clear that they do not welcome the support of Alastair Campbell. Their very young Remain First activists do not remember who and what he was. But the rest of us do, and he remains utterly unrepentant. 

Having opposed the Iraq War, at least until it had started, the Lib Dems should have absolutely nothing to do with him. And after both the expulsion of Campbell and the pitiful showing for Change UK, Labour should seize the opportunity to expel Tony Blair.

Not that it will, of course. 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.

"Television That Truly Represents People"?


Commission This

The Equality and Human Rights Commission whitewashed, so to speak, the record of the Government on the Windrush Scandal.

But it is thoroughly annoyed at the failure of Change UK, for which every one of its members and senior staff will have voted, to win even so much as one seat. So here it comes against Jeremy Corbyn.

Here it comes, on the orders of the Israeli Embassy, by which it is controlled. Against Jeremy Corbyn, with whom at least one of those members, Adam Wagner, is completely obsessed.

I have thought for years that if Corbyn really did have the Irish, Middle Eastern and other connections that were routinely suggested, then all sorts of people would have been visited at home by now.

Perhaps the members and senior staff of the EHRC really do need to be paid a few social calls? That would sharp bring this, publicly funded, nonsense to an end.

The Boys might usefully begin with Adam Wagner.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 35

It has now been more than seven weeks since the jury in my trial, the third attempt at one, was discharged.

The previous day, the star prosecution witness had been sent away to come up with the only piece of evidence, a single email that no one had ever asked to see until then.

As soon as they did, then he never reappeared on his video link from the United States, and the jury was discharged.

More than seven weeks later, that email, a perfectly simple thing to find, has still not turned up. It does not exist.

It is no wonder that we longer have even so much as a date for a Case Management Hearing, still less for a trial. There is no case against me. None.

But this post will appear every day until further notice.

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.

Schoolgirl's Record of Achievement Watch: Day 35

It is now more than two years since the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party effectively abolished the Constituency Labour Party in North West Durham by denying it any role in the selection of its parliamentary candidate. It then imposed a 29-year-old who had never set foot here, and of whom next to no one here had ever heard.

Soon afterwards, she lost her seat on Northumberland County Council. I was present when she received that news, at the count for Durham County Council, where she was being introduced as the all-done-and-dusted Prospective Parliamentary Candidate to stalwarts who did not even know her name, but several of whom had already bought me drinks.

For some years by then, certain of them had been introducing me at funerals as, "The man who should have been our MP." Everyone does that now, and there no longer even needs to have been a death. They also call me "Speedboat", as in, "Here's what you could have won."

But I am a generous old soul. So I invite in the comments specific examples of the achievements of Laura Pidcock MP. This post will appear daily until the second anniversary of the 2017 General Election.

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.

Off The List

We should put it on posters: "The North East, Even Less Liberal Than Northern Ireland." But why do we have only as many MEPs as they do? We have a far larger population.

Oh, well, as things stand, then the denial of a seat to the Lib Dems in the North East has been the only thing that Change UK has ever achieved. On Sunday night, Blairism died. Although, since not even Alastair Campbell voted for Change UK, then no doubt neither did Tony Blair. Oh, the humiliation.

The strangely popular Simon Henig Watch has therefore been discontinued on here, since we now know exactly how many people believe in the existence of "Labour anti-Semitism". 571,846. Or 3.32 per cent of the total.

Meanwhile, there are now nine candidates to lead the Conservative Party. One for each percent of the vote that it now gets.

Instead of such idle frivolity, there needs to be a publication that combined top quality coverage of popular culture with the provision of a platform for the three partially overlapping political trends that really mattered in Britain today: Brexit, the resurgent economic and foreign policy Left, and Remain. Watch this space.

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.

Monday 27 May 2019

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 34

It has now been more than seven weeks since the jury in my trial, the third attempt at one, was discharged.

The previous day, the star prosecution witness had been sent away to come up with the only piece of evidence, a single email that no one had ever asked to see until then.

As soon as they did, then he never reappeared on his video link from the United States, and the jury was discharged.

More than seven weeks later, that email, a perfectly simple thing to find, has still not turned up. It does not exist.

It is no wonder that we longer have even so much as a date for a Case Management Hearing, still less for a trial. There is no case against me. None.

But this post will appear every day until further notice.

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.

Schoolgirl's Record of Achievement Watch: Day 34

It is now more than two years since the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party effectively abolished the Constituency Labour Party in North West Durham by denying it any role in the selection of its parliamentary candidate. It then imposed a 29-year-old who had never set foot here, and of whom next to no one here had ever heard.

Soon afterwards, she lost her seat on Northumberland County Council. I was present when she received that news, at the count for Durham County Council, where she was being introduced as the all-done-and-dusted Prospective Parliamentary Candidate to stalwarts who did not even know her name, but several of whom had already bought me drinks.

For some years by then, certain of them had been introducing me at funerals as, "The man who should have been our MP." Everyone does that now, and there no longer even needs to have been a death. They also call me "Speedboat", as in, "Here's what you could have won."

But I am a generous old soul. So I invite in the comments specific examples of the achievements of Laura Pidcock MP. This post will appear daily until the second anniversary of the 2017 General Election.

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.

Sunday 26 May 2019

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 33

It has now been more than seven weeks since the jury in my trial, the third attempt at one, was discharged.

The previous day, the star prosecution witness had been sent away to come up with the only piece of evidence, a single email that no one had ever asked to see until then.

As soon as they did, then he never reappeared on his video link from the United States, and the jury was discharged.

More than seven weeks later, that email, a perfectly simple thing to find, has still not turned up. It does not exist.

It is no wonder that we longer have even so much as a date for a Case Management Hearing, still less for a trial. There is no case against me. None.

But this post will appear every day until further notice.

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.

Schoolgirl's Record of Achievement Watch: Day 33

It is now more than two years since the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party effectively abolished the Constituency Labour Party in North West Durham by denying it any role in the selection of its parliamentary candidate. It then imposed a 29-year-old who had never set foot here, and of whom next to no one here had ever heard.

Soon afterwards, she lost her seat on Northumberland County Council. I was present when she received that news, at the count for Durham County Council, where she was being introduced as the all-done-and-dusted Prospective Parliamentary Candidate to stalwarts who did not even know her name, but several of whom had already bought me drinks.

For some years by then, certain of them had been introducing me at funerals as, "The man who should have been our MP." Everyone does that now, and there no longer even needs to have been a death. They also call me "Speedboat", as in, "Here's what you could have won."

But I am a generous old soul. So I invite in the comments specific examples of the achievements of Laura Pidcock MP. This post will appear daily until the second anniversary of the 2017 General Election.

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.

Henig Watch: Day 191

Rather magnanimously, considering how he became the Leader of Durham County Council in the first place, the Durham Miners' Association has permitted Simon Henig to sit on the platform of the last two Durham Miners' Galas.

On both occasions, he has of course shared that platform with the principal speaker, Jeremy Corbyn. It is therefore the least to be expected that @SimonHenig will tweet the simple formula, ".@jeremycorbyn is not an anti-Semite." This post will appear here daily until that tweet has been posted.

Saturday 25 May 2019

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 32

It has now been more than seven weeks since the jury in my trial, the third attempt at one, was discharged.

The previous day, the star prosecution witness had been sent away to come up with the only piece of evidence, a single email that no one had ever asked to see until then.

As soon as they did, then he never reappeared on his video link from the United States, and the jury was discharged.

More than seven weeks later, that email, a perfectly simple thing to find, has still not turned up. It does not exist.

It is no wonder that we longer have even so much as a date for a Case Management Hearing, still less for a trial. There is no case against me. None.

But this post will appear every day until further notice.

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.

Schoolgirl's Record of Achievement Watch: Day 32

It is now more than two years since the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party effectively abolished the Constituency Labour Party in North West Durham by denying it any role in the selection of its parliamentary candidate. It then imposed a 29-year-old who had never set foot here, and of whom next to no one here had ever heard.

Soon afterwards, she lost her seat on Northumberland County Council. I was present when she received that news, at the count for Durham County Council, where she was being introduced as the all-done-and-dusted Prospective Parliamentary Candidate to stalwarts who did not even know her name, but several of whom had already bought me drinks.

For some years by then, certain of them had been introducing me at funerals as, "The man who should have been our MP." Everyone does that now, and there no longer even needs to have been a death. They also call me "Speedboat", as in, "Here's what you could have won."

But I am a generous old soul. So I invite in the comments specific examples of the achievements of Laura Pidcock MP. This post will appear daily until the second anniversary of the 2017 General Election.

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.

Henig Watch: Day 190

Rather magnanimously, considering how he became the Leader of Durham County Council in the first place, the Durham Miners' Association has permitted Simon Henig to sit on the platform of the last two Durham Miners' Galas.

On both occasions, he has of course shared that platform with the principal speaker, Jeremy Corbyn. It is therefore the least to be expected that @SimonHenig will tweet the simple formula, ".@jeremycorbyn is not an anti-Semite." This post will appear here daily until that tweet has been posted.

Friday 24 May 2019

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 31

It has now been more than seven weeks since the jury in my trial, the third attempt at one, was discharged.

The previous day, the star prosecution witness had been sent away to come up with the only piece of evidence, a single email that no one had ever asked to see until then.

As soon as they did, then he never reappeared on his video link from the United States, and the jury was discharged.

More than seven weeks later, that email, a perfectly simple thing to find, has still not turned up. It does not exist.

It is no wonder that we longer have even so much as a date for a Case Management Hearing, still less for a trial. There is no case against me. None.

But this post will appear every day until further notice.

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.

Schoolgirl's Record of Achievement Watch: Day 31

It is now more than two years since the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party effectively abolished the Constituency Labour Party in North West Durham by denying it any role in the selection of its parliamentary candidate. It then imposed a 29-year-old who had never set foot here, and of whom next to no one here had ever heard.

Soon afterwards, she lost her seat on Northumberland County Council. I was present when she received that news, at the count for Durham County Council, where she was being introduced as the all-done-and-dusted Prospective Parliamentary Candidate to stalwarts who did not even know her name, but several of whom had already bought me drinks.

For some years by then, certain of them had been introducing me at funerals as, "The man who should have been our MP." Everyone does that now, and there no longer even needs to have been a death. They also call me "Speedboat", as in, "Here's what you could have won."

But I am a generous old soul. So I invite in the comments specific examples of the achievements of Laura Pidcock MP. This post will appear daily until the second anniversary of the 2017 General Election.

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.

The Lanchester Review: Will Biden’s Dog Whistles For Racism Catch Up With Him?

Norman Solomon certainly hopes so.

States of Affairs

The Conservative Party was almost completely united on Europe until the very late 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher seemed to swap sides in what we now know to have been an early manifestation of her dementia. Since then, the two sides have fought for control of the party, although with the pro-EU side almost invariably the winner.

By contrast, almost since British membership was first mooted in the 1950s, the Labour Party has continuously been split from top to bottom on Europe, with every shade of opinion on the subject to be found at every level of the party at any given time.

Today, we have seen yet another consequence of the first state of affairs, although that consequence has only just begun to be played out. And in the early hours of Monday morning, we shall begin to see yet another consequence of the second state of affairs, too.

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.

Democracy Dies In Darkness

Julian Assange faces 175 years in prison in the United States, or more likely death, for revealing war crimes. This is the result of the failure to rule out his extradition to anywhere, on any pretext. What if Britain had done this to Donald Woods?

Notice the silence of The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post, all of which gleefully published Assange's material, but which then switched sides when it looked as if he might have contribute to the nemesis of the Clintons. And notice the silence both of Jeremy Corbyn and of the Chosen One, whom we are supposed to be so honoured to host as our Member of Parliament in these parts.

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.

Modi's Modus

As Narendra Modi is reelected, consider that, while the last Labour Government outlawed caste-based discrimination, this lot has relegalised it. A considerable BJP operation in London delivers several marginal seats to the Conservatives. At least one of those seats is held by an old friend of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

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.

So Here We Go Again

Becoming only the third mainstream British journalist to break the silence, Robert Fisk writes:

We like to take the Big Boys on trust. No longer do we believe in our meretricious little leaders with their easy lies and twitters: the Trumps and Mays and now all the nationalists of Europe. We certainly don’t put any credit in Arab dictators. 

But when, despite all its bureaucracy and corruption, the UN tells us that the world faces climate change, we largely believe what it says. If the International Red Cross warns us of a humanitarian catastrophe in Africa, we tend to take their word for it. 

And when the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) – which represents 193 member states throughout the world – reports on chlorine attacks in Syria, we assume we are hearing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 

Until now. 

For in the last few days, there has emerged disturbing evidence that in its final report on the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime in the city of Douma last year, the OPCW deliberately concealed from both the public and the press the existence of a dissenting 15-page assessment of two cylinders which had supposedly contained molecular chlorine – perhaps the most damning evidence against the Assad regime in the entire report. 

The OPCW officially maintains that these canisters were probably dropped by an aircraft – probably a helicopter, presumably Syrian – over Douma on 7 April 2018. But the dissenting assessment, which the OPCW made no reference to in its published conclusions, finds there is a “higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft”.

It is difficult to underestimate the seriousness of this manipulative act by the OPCW. In a response to the conservative author Peter Hitchens, who also writes for the Mail on Sunday – he is of course the brother of the late Christopher Hitchens – the OPCW admits that its so-called technical secretariat “is conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised [sic] release of the document”. 

Then it adds: “At this time, there is no further public information on this matter and the OPCW is unable to accommodate [sic] requests for interviews”. It’s a tactic that until now seems to have worked: not a single news media which reported the OPCW’s official conclusions has followed up the story of the report which the OPCW suppressed.

And you bet the OPCW is not going to “accommodate” interviews. For here is an institution investigating a war crime in a conflict which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives – yet its only response to an enquiry about the engineers’ “secret” assessment is to concentrate on its own witch-hunt for the source of the document it wished to keep secret from the world.

If this is not lamentable enough, the OPCW – whose final report came to more than a hundred pages and which even issued an easy-to-read precis version for journalists – now slams shut its steel doors in the hope of preventing even more information reaching the press.

Far more dangerous is that its act of censorship has provided an ocean of propaganda for the west’s opponents, for the Syrian regime and for the Russians. Russia Today has been regaling its viewers with tales of how Nato powers politically control the OPCW. American websites – pro-peace but also, alas, pro-conspiracy – are having a field day with the engineers’ conflicting report.

And as for the gullible, viewing, reading public – us – this outrageous deceit by this supposedly authoritative body of international scientists can lead to only one conclusion: that we must resort once more to the Assanges and the Chelsea Mannings – “traitors” who harm western security in the in the eyes of their enemies – and the revelations of groups like Wikileaks, if we want to know the truth of what happens in our world and the real story behind the official reports.

Institutional – and journalistic – memory is such that we should perhaps take a trip down memory lane to remind ourselves of the importance of the 2018 Douma attack.

As Syrian government troops closed in on Islamist-held Douma in the early spring of last year – besieging several square miles of apartment blocks, slums and narrow streets on the eastern edge of Damascus – videos transmitted from the scene showed harrowing footage of civilians foaming at the mouth and apparently choking to death after inhaling gas. 

The Damascus government denied the claim. So did the Russians. But on the basis that sufficient evidence of a gas attack had been provided, the US, Britain and France launched bombing raids into Syria. At a press conference in London, Theresa May conducted a blistering condemnation of the Assad dictatorship for using gas against women and children. 

There had been many reports of chemical attacks by the regime in Syria before the Douma episode, but the world’s response to the video evidence from the ward of a makeshift hospital there turned the event into a major international crisis. Among the American cruise missile targets was a scientific centre in Damascus which the OPCW had itself cleared of any involvement in chemical warfare in the autumn of 2018.

But within two weeks – after delays imposed by the Syrians for “security” reasons – international scientists from the OPCW, who had already interviewed doctors from the Douma hospital, arrived in the streets where the chemical attack allegedly took place.

In their final official report in March this year, the OPCW say that although no “organophosphorous nerve agents” – sarin gas, to you and me – were found in Douma and that those recorded as dying in the attack had already been buried, their team, which it says included “mechanical engineering” experts, concluded that the canisters found in two specific locations had passed through concrete and a ceiling to impact on the floor of buildings.

It is possible, the OPCW said, “that the cylinders were the sources of the substances containing reactive chlorine”. Testimony, environmental and biomedical samples and toxicological and ballistic analyses, “provide reasonable grounds that the use of toxic chemical as a weapon took place.” In other words, the canisters had fallen from the sky. 

The then-unrevealed document titled “Unclassified – OPCW Sensitive, Do Not Circulate – Engineering Assessment of the Two Cylinders Observed at the Douma Incident – Executive Summary” and dated 27 February this year, is authored by an engineer whose name is all over the internet but which we shall not repeat here.

It draws diametrically opposite conclusions to the published report, stating that the “engineering sub-team cannot be certain that the cylinders at either location arrived there as a result of being dropped from an aircraft”. And why not?

“The dimensions, characteristics and appearance of the cylinders and the surrounding scene of the incidents were inconsistent with what would have been expected in the case of either cylinder having been delivered from an aircraft ... In summary, observations at the scene of the two locations together with subsequent analysis suggest that there is a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered by aircraft.”

Put bluntly, the paper is suggesting that the location of the cylinders was a set-up, that someone inside Douma immediately after the bombings of 7 April 2018 – and no one, not even the Syrians or Russians, deny there was conventional bombing and shelling that night – placed the cylinders in the locations in which they were subsequently examined by the OPCW.

Since the first images of the cylinders in these locations were shown on footage before the Syrians and Russians entered Douma, the obvious corollary is that forces opposed to the Assad regime may have put them there. In all cases of this kind, it is necessary to understand that the search for evidence of gas attacks is notoriously difficult. It is necessarily an inexact science. Unlike shell fragments, shrapnel, mortar base plates, rocket computer codings or arms manuals, gas carries no convenient label which might betray the owners or manufacturers. Chemicals contain no computer parts.

And thus both the OPCW’s official report and the suppressed engineers’ assessment are very scientific documents – perhaps arcane to the uninitiated – but they are worth reading in their entirety, perhaps with a science dictionary to hand. Readers can find both the full report and, after a little detective work, the leaked engineers’ report on the internet.

The OPCW might have saved itself much embarrassment – and ridicule by the Russians – if it had simply told the whole truth: that while a majority of its scientists came to the conclusion that the “gas” cylinders came through the roof (i.e., from an aircraft), a minority report believed that they did not. This would have been no more than the practice of a public enquiry which includes a dissenting minority point of view. But that was obviously not what the OPCW wanted.

Hence its own slightly odd final conclusion that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that toxic chemicals had been used in Douma: “reasonable grounds” might be an acceptable response to evidence at the scene of a domestic crime – but hardly sufficient to retrospectively justify a Nato air raid on Syria.

I was myself much vexed by the scenes I encountered in Douma when I arrived a few days after the attack. I did not dismiss the possibility that gas had been used, but eyewitnesses and the head of the field hospital where the victims had been treated insisted they knew nothing of gas. 

Bombed-out civilian apartments once lived in by Islamist rebels in Douma (Yara Ismail) The doctor, who was at his home near the hospital at the time, insisted that the patients were suffering from hypoxia – from dust and dirt inhalation from the air bombings, and that someone whom he identified as a “White Helmet” NGO worker shouted “Gas!” and started a panic among the victims. The official OPCW report records precisely the same events, along with the doctor’s memory of the man who shouted “Gas!”. But interestingly the OPCW did not identify the man as a “White Helmet”.

But my own report in The Independent – and the condemnation visited upon it later by critics – is utterly trivial in comparison to the implications of the OPCW’s decision to suppress the report of its own engineers. Perhaps they will discover the source of the leak. Perhaps they will claim that part of it is fabricated, though this is highly unlikely since they have already referred to “the unauthorised release of the document”. 

But two words of warning. Just because the OPCW took the extraordinary decision to cover up some of its evidence in Douma does not mean that gas has not been used in Syria by the government or even by the Russians or by Isis and its fellow Islamists. Undoubtedly it has. All stand guilty of war crimes in the Syrian conflict. The OPCW’s dishonesty – for that is what it amounts to – does not let war criminals off the hook. 

There’s another red light. We all remember how, after falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, we invaded Iraq on these false pretences and – within a few years – claimed that Iran was making weapons of mass destruction, and then threatened Iran with war, something we continue to the present day. What if we are now told that yet once more Syria is using gas against its enemies? 

Strangely, amid the revelations of the OPCW’s hidden report, the US State Department – just two days ago – announced that “we continue to see signs that the Assad regime may be renewing its use of chemical weapons, including an alleged chlorine attack in northwest Syria on the morning of 19 May 2019…” 

So here we go again.

Henig Watch: Day 189

Rather magnanimously, considering how he became the Leader of Durham County Council in the first place, the Durham Miners' Association has permitted Simon Henig to sit on the platform of the last two Durham Miners' Galas.

On both occasions, he has of course shared that platform with the principal speaker, Jeremy Corbyn. It is therefore the least to be expected that @SimonHenig will tweet the simple formula, ".@jeremycorbyn is not an anti-Semite." This post will appear here daily until that tweet has been posted.

Thursday 23 May 2019

Save Legal Aid

I would already have been to prison without it. I might even still be there.

This really matters. Like the Alston Report, it ought to be very big news. But like the Alston Report, it isn't.

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.