Sunday 30 June 2019

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 21

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 67

It has now been more than 12 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 12 weeks later, and 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, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Networked Thinking

As Network Rail bids for the parts of British Steel that are essential to its own work, then something has occurred to me. It has probably occurred to you, too. But it will not have occurred to any Conservative MPs, or to any more than a handful of Labour ones.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

In The End

Nigel Farage's enormous regional infrastructure programme would be news if anyone still cared about the Brexit Party. Or very much about Brexit. The people who used to vote UKIP are still there. But that is pretty much all that we are talking about now.

There is no way that we are leaving the EU on 31st October. Simply in point of fact, that is not going to happen. Least of all under Boris Johnson, although he is most unlikely to be Prime Minister by then. His own party's MPs will see to that.

Nevertheless, since he may still have a Premiership, however brief, Johnson's enormous regional infrastructure programme, and his commitment to greatly increased borrowing in order to pay for it, is news. Even the loyal Sophy Ridge had to compare him on air to John McDonnell, which he did not deny. He has conceded the end, just not the means. Enter someone with an understanding of Modern Monetary Theory.

Farage has not conceded the end. He comes from a clear political position that is incompatible with the objectives that he is now purporting to profess. In the end, a General Election manifesto acceptable to him will never be acceptable to at least half of the people who voted for the Brexit Party at the European Elections, including several of that party's own MEPs.

Johnson, on the other hand, has no political position beyond the advancement of Boris Johnson, so there might have been potential, if there might have been any chance of his lasting as Prime Minister. But in both cases, they are where they now are only because of four years of Jeremy Corbyn. Commitments of this kind on their part would have been absolutely unthinkable without him.

The problem is that most Labour MPs do not share any such commitment. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Saturday 29 June 2019

On This Rock

Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam Meam.

Considering the claims that the See of Rome makes, then, while individual Popes might be or have been charlatans or lunatics, the institution itself is either telling the truth in making those claims, or else it is indeed the Antichrist, and any professing Christian who does not submit to Rome on Rome’s own terms must believe it to be so.

Who will call good evil by pointing to the Papacy’s defence and promotion of metaphysical realism, of Biblical historicity, of credal and Chalcedonian orthodoxy, of the sanctity of human life, of Biblical standards of sexual morality, of social justice, and of peace, and by then saying, “Behold, the Antichrist”? That is the question.

Ah, Faith of Our Fathers. Father Faber, like a striking number of Tractarian or Tractarian-influenced converts, had an ancestry that was largely Huguenot (as is part of mine, although another side is Highland Catholic). So his “fathers chained in prisons dark” were not quite as his thoroughly rousing hymn would suggest.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 20

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 66

It has now been more than 12 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 12 weeks later, and 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, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Middle Ground

Anyone who doubts the impact that, for all his faults, Jeremy Corbyn has had, consider that before the summer of 2015, no one who might have hoped for any media attention would have questioned Boris Johnson's assertion that people with personal incomes of between £50,000 and £80,000, between twice the median household income and well over three times that median, were "middle earners".

Alas, most Labour MPs, who are themselves in that bracket, still would not do so. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Remarkable

Chris Williamson's unremarkable remarks were not racist. For that, you need Margaret Hodge's assertion that the only victims of racism in Britain today were Jews.

Although she has form (she did beat the BNP when it was strong in Barking, but largely by trying to meet it halfway), there has not been a peep about this from any of the people who had never wanted to be Labour MPs. They had wanted to be the Conservative MPs for their own home areas.

But they had not come from the right families or gone to the right schools. So instead, they have had to try and be Labour politicians in places of which they had never previously heard. They have hated every second of it. They still do.

Also, notice that while only one third of Labour MPs has publicly denounced Chris, none has publicly supported him. Not one, including the MP for North West Durham, has said that it was not his unremarkable remarks that were racist, but Margaret Hodge's assertion that the only victims of racism in Britain today were Jews.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

A Very Changed World

And so Donald Trump decides that Huawei is all right after all, or at least no worse than any of the rest of them. Trump was elected on a wave of discontent with the neoliberal economic policy, the identitarian social policy, the neoconservative foreign policy, and the anti-industrial Malthusianism, that Silicon Valley takes for granted. 

Beginning with economics and then extending logically into every other sphere, that came to power in Britain, not with Margaret Thatcher, but with the Callaghan Government's turn to monetarism in 1977. And it came to power in the United States, not with Ronald Reagan, but with Jimmy Carter, who has now become, unless I am very much mistaken, the first former President of the United States ever to claim publicly that the incumbent President had not been legitimately elected.

In similar vein are the people who are jumping on the bandwagon against Chris Williamson. They thought that the economic and social free-for-all, spread across the world by force of arms and yet somehow also committed to misanthropic tree-hugging, would carry on forever. Chiefly, on this side of the Atlantic, as the European Union.

In response to a very changed world, they are behaving as the spoilt children that they are. It beggars belief that Labour MPs are preparing to halt the funding of public services in order to serve the EU, yet that is what they are about to do. No doubt including the MP for North West Durham.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

The Gathering Storm

We look forward to Boris Johnson's grime retort to Stormzy after what he managed to get an enormous, mostly white and middle-class, audience to chant last night. 

That audience was larger than the Conservative Leadership electorate. Probably, so will be the turnout at the Tolpuddle Martyrs' Festival. And certainly, so will be the turnout at the Durham Miners' Gala. There may also be such chanting at those. It is unlikely, however, to be led from the stage by the headline act, Jeremy Corbyn. But you never know.

As well as being very close to Corbyn, Stormzy is Prince William's gym buddy. This is the new Court Party. Hopelessly unglamorous Home Counties accountant politicians are not the future. Just ask their chanting children from last night.

Font of Wisdom

I am so old that my godson (who is also a former tutee of Tom Hamilton's) now writes this on Facebook:

Note to The Times leading today on an allegation that Jeremy Corbyn is supposedly going ga ga and therefore can't be PM.

a) Which of the certifiable lunatics on the other side are you currently supporting, and

b) Please publish from the archives, your detailed and extensive reporting on the mental health of Ronald Reagan during, in particular, his second term in office as POTUS, a man who really did have access to a very big nuclear button he might well have pushed, even though when ever he had to face up to nuclear war as reality as opposed to cartoon video game, he was rather horrified by it. 

Remember Reagan was far older. Corbyn's only 70 for heavens sake, Gladstone was forming governments in his 80's!

I am very proud.

Friday 28 June 2019

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 19

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 65

It has now been more than 12 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 12 weeks later, and 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, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Thursday 27 June 2019

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 18

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 64

It has now been more than 12 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 12 weeks later, and 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, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

"We Do Vet Our Candidates"

So sniggered some office boy or other at the Brexit Party in ruling out George Galloway as a candidate, something that he has never asked to be. Well, giggle on, girly, because the Brexit Party failed to win even the Peterborough by-election, making it practically certain that it will never win a Westminster seat.

Whereas George is going to score one of the famous victories of the next General Election when he takes Birmingham Yardley from Jess Phillips. Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Spotlight

It is really not looking good Ian Paisley. A certain sort of sentimentalist invests far too much hope in the DUP. As can be seen from the Government's record since 2017, at best that party has the standard Irish view of the English as morally and spiritually beyond help. 

The English want to teach their children that there are 57 genders? Well, that is just what the English do? The English want to pay for women from Northern Ireland to have abortions? Likewise, just so long as it happens in England and not in Northern Ireland. And so on.

If the Big Man had been dead even slightly longer, such as if the referendum had been held now, then the DUP would have campaigned, however "reluctantly", for Remain. In a referendum between Remain and anything like the Withdrawal Agreement, then it would now do precisely that.

But as for the sectarianism, with its links to racism and paramilitarism (at least one DUP openly owes her election to the Loyalist paramilitaries among whom her father is a legendary figure), the DUP is hardly unique in that. Margaret Hodge somehow retains membership of the Labour Party despite having gone on television and said that the only racism these days was against Jews. There are no other victims of it, apparently. It is time for Marc Wadsworth to declare that he will be a parliamentary candidate against Hodge at Barking.

Jeremy Corbyn called her out when she was running Islington's children's homes as brothels, and she has never forgiven him. That is what this is all about. Never forget that. And notice that the charge of anti-Semitism was also used by the late Lord Janner against any and everyone who ever questioned him about anything, including his sexual abuse of children. His mates in the House of Lords are still using it on his behalf even now.

He bequeathed his seat in the House of Commons to Patricia Hewitt of the Paedophile Information Exchange, and she in turn passed it on to Liz Kendall, a signatory to today's letter against Chris Williamson. Meanwhile, Janner's daughter is the latest self-appointed "community leader" that British Jews have to endure, "Senior Rabbi" and anti-Corbyn fanatic, Laura Janner-Klausner.

Anyone may convert to Judaism, just as anyone may convert to Catholicism. Neither is any more a "race" than the other is. Now, imagine that the Labour Party cared as much about Catholics, who are Britain's largest minority and around two thirds of whom either already vote Labour or could at least be persuaded, as it did about Jews, who are one of Britain's smallest minorities and at least two thirds of whom would simply never consider voting for anyone other than the Conservative candidate for anything.

Of course, the Conservative Party is no great friend of the Faith, either. There are Labour MPs with the same views on the supposedly touchstone issues as Jacob Rees-Mogg has, but they are no more going to become Leader than he is. Jacob Rees-Mogg or anyone of his beliefs has never stood any more chance of becoming Leader of the Conservative Party, nor ever will, than Ronnie Campbell has ever stood of becoming Leader of the Labour Party, or ever will. Just as no one of those beliefs will ever be the Presidential nominee of either main party in the United States.

But imagine that there were as many Catholics in the news and current affairs media as there are Jews. Or imagine that there were any of the rapidly growing Haredim, of whom none of the "official" Jewish bodies is remotely representative. Where would that leave the definition of "the centre ground" as neoliberal economic policy, identitarian social policy, neoconservative foreign policy, and yet somehow also zero carbon emissions, as if there could be war without industry?

Where would it leave the hegemony of Freedlandism-Finkelsteinism, in which all mainland British parties are New York liberal, and the rest of us can like it or lump it? The DUP has certainly done nothing to change that, but then why would it? It sees the English as "just like that, anyway". The Irish often do. And the DUP is utterly, utterly Irish.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

I Presume?

There have only ever been five elections for Mayor of London, and Ken Livingstone has come either first or second at four of them. He did not contest the fifth. When Boris Johnson claims to have beaten Labour, then he has in fact only ever beaten Livingstone, a man, it is true, who had himself beaten the formidable first term Blair Labour Party to become Mayor in 2000.

So it would be great fun to see Livingstone contest Uxbridge and South Ruislip at the next General Election. That would, however be a mistake, since this is no place for vote-splitting. In 2010, John Randall's majority there was 11,216. In 2015, Johnson's was a comparable 10,695. But in 2017, he had halved it to 5,034.

By contrast, in 2001, Virginia Bottomley held South West Surrey by a mere 861 votes. In 2005, Jeremy Hunt got that up to 5,711. In 2017, his majority was an eye-watering 21,590. Hunt is certainly going to keep his seat. Johnson could perfectly easily be deprived of his.

A month from now, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Home Secretary, and the Foreign Secretary will respectively be Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Sajid Javid, and Jeremy Hunt. Or else they will be Jeremy Hunt, Philip Hammond, Sajid Javid, and Alan Duncan. In either event, what on earth do the chest-beating Back Boris buffoons think that they will have achieved? 

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

A Big Question For The Big Meeting

At the forthcoming Durham Miners' Gala, no doubt a seat on the platform will again be given to the Leader of Durham County Council, Councillor Dr Simon Henig CBE.

Yet in all the kerfuffle around the new headquarters of Durham County Council, remember that the contract to build it has been awarded to the Kier Group, with its history of blacklisting.

How can it be acceptable for the man most responsible to be seated on the platform of one of the largest trade union events in the world, and easily the largest in this country?

How can trade unionists bring themselves to share a platform with him? Why should there not be picketing?

Hill Top View

As Margaret Hodge's daughter once again gets her all over the BBC to further her 30-year feud with Jeremy Corbyn while claiming that Jews are the only acceptable victims of racism, a letter opposing the readmission of Chris Williamson to the Labour Party has been signed by our old friend in these parts, Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top.

Hilary Armstrong has some gall, to presume to lecture anyone about racism. In 2003, she banned me from being a District Council candidate in her constituency because I was mixed-race. But in 2017, her name, face, and words of endorsement, graced the election literature of the present MP for North West Durham.

Quite apart from the fact that Lady Crook is a racist who was, at the same time as that incident, the Government Chief Whip at the time of the Iraq War, her latest successor now needs to confirm, both whether she considers the admirable campaign to defend hospital services in Consett to be well served by association with this person, and whether she herself, Laura Pidcock, agrees that Chris Williamson ought to be expelled from the Labour Party.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Fundamentally Unchanged

The Village Voice has kindly published this:

A number of people have been in touch with me in my capacity as one of Derwentside’s elected Public Governors of County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. The first major campaign in which I was ever involved, including my first ever appearance on television, was in defence of Shotley Bridge Hospital. More than 20 years later, my view remains fundamentally unchanged.

That site is coming to the end of its natural life. These things happen. But the proximity of the Lanchester and Langley Park areas to Dryburn, and the relative proximity of the Stanley area both to Dryburn and to Chester-le-Street, mean that at least the same range of services must be relocated within the Consett area. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

To be clear, while there was always going to have to be a new site eventually and that time is now upon us, we need to protect the coverage of this area both at Durham and at Consett. At least the same range of services must be retained at Durham, and at least the same range of services must be relocated within the Consett area. We can do this. So let’s do it.

Wednesday 26 June 2019

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 17

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 63

It has now been 12 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. 12 weeks later, and 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, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

The Mayfly Prime Minister

No one has ever become Leader of the Labour Party against the wishes of the trade unions. If that happened, then the cash tap would be turned off. 

But Boris Johnson is about to become Leader of the Conservative Party against the wishes of the people who paid its bills. 

It is no wonder, then, that that party's own MPs have already said they were going to bring him down on his first day.

It would only take three of them. Three who were already planning to retire, perhaps. Easy.

Boris Johnson will be the Mayfly Prime Minister.

Putting The Statement Into Reinstatement

It is reported that the Labour Party has reinstated Chris Williamson. 

Chris is the Left's only credible candidate for Deputy Leader, but he has more sense than to do it, since he recognises that Tom Watson is no Blairite, and that the Right has to have the Deputy Leadership for the Left to have the Leadership. 

Chris led Derby City Council in coalition with the Conservatives, so he is no sectarian. The people who are, however, have had a vulgar rabble-rouser lined up to challenge Tom in Chris's absence. They will be livid that Chris is back.

Now, to reinstate the first MP to nominate Jeremy Corbyn for Leader, Kelvin Hopkins, the injustice against whom is obscene.

Just A GNU?

Neither Yvette Cooper nor Hilary Benn has ruled out becoming Prime Minister in a "Government of National Unity". Cooper came third at the Labour Leadership Election before last, while Benn came fourth at a Labour Deputy Leadership Election 12 years ago. 

The potential Labour members or supporters of a "Government of National Unity" are economically well to the right of the present Government, and would probably also be far more gung-ho militarily. More broadly and more deeply, if the Government were a "Government of National Unity", then what would that make everyone else? And what measures would that justify against everyone else?

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Beyond His Ken

At least half of Boris Johnson's parliamentary supporters are Remainers or he would have gone the way of Esther McVey, and Jeremy Hunt is still going to take 40 per cent of the vote in the Conservative Party at large. The theory that it is a strongly pro-Brexit party is laughable, and is put about by people who merely long for it to be true. The only proposition even more absurd than that is that we might have left the European Union by 31st October, or ever on WTO terms while Parliament still existed.

As for the idea that Johnson has a record of beating Labour, he has turned a previously safe seat into a marginal (whereas Hunt has done the opposite), and if you are talking about the London Mayoralty, then he has only ever beaten Ken Livingstone, who has never been typical of the Labour Party, who is no longer even a member of it, and who is not going to be on the ballot anywhere at the next General Election.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare. And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Strength, Optimism And Determination

It was good to see Jeremy Corbyn standing with Richard Ratcliffe outside the Iranian Embassy yesterday, in support of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, whose fate ought to have ended the public life of Boris Johnson some time ago. 

Corbyn now needs to board a plane to Tehran, with his smartphone in his hands. Immediately before landing, he should tweet that he would not be leaving without Nazanin. The cameras would be waiting, and Nazanin could be brought home.

If I were in Parliament, then I would already have done this. But no sitting MP has done it. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it.

A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so.

In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Salisbury Plain?

Asked about Yemen, Theresa May ranted on about Salisbury, where Jeremy Corbyn's mistake was to give any credence whatever to the Government's ludicrous claims. But she seemed to suggest that there had been more than one death. Who is going to pick up on that with either her or her successor? Having already conceded to much, Corbyn cannot do so.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare. 

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Tuesday 25 June 2019

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 16

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 62

It has now been more than 11 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 11 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.

What Little Remains

Will Labour call for a second referendum, and then campaign for a Remain vote?

Probably not, because either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt would have to try and take the United Kingdom out of the European Union in the first place for that to become anything more than the most hypothetical of questions.

Neither of them has any intention of doing any such thing. If he did, then his Government would fall the next day, or even the same day. And in any case, he does not believe in it. 

Like Michael Gove, Johnson stunned David Cameron by coming out for Leave with a view to a future Leadership Election to be determined by the Conservative Party's mostly pro-Brexit members rather than by its heavily Remainer MPs.

Both Johnson and Gove will have voted Remain, or they would not have come first and third among those MPs, with the frankly pro-Remain Jeremy Hunt in second place.

Of course, the Parliamentary Labour Party is just as bad. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it.

A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare. 

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up.

I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so.

In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

The Next Generation

And so the 67-year-old Jim Fitzpatrick announces that he will not contest a General Election 25 years after he was first elected. Cue howling about purges in certain quarters, and gloating about purges in certain other quarters. But the reality is that people who had first been elected in 1997, when they were generally in their late thirties or in their forties, were always going to retire in some numbers in 2022.

They were representative enough of where the Labour Party was in the mid-Nineties, and their successors will be representative of where the Labour Party is today. No purges are necessary, only the natural course of events. Alas, though, there are less than ideal qualities to the Labour Party of today, even if they do not begin to approach the failings of the Labour Party in the PFI-and-wars years.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Affluent Effluent

I am very pleased for all the Southern Water customers who can now look forward to rebates. But it should never have come to this. 

The same product, via the same wires or pipes, cannot possibly cost different amounts from different companies. Never mind from the same company, but on different tariffs. 

The utilities are currently delivered by cartels of pretend-competitors, instead of being where they belong, in public ownership. 

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. 

A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare. 

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. 

I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so.

In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Done Up For What?

Is there any plan to use Frogmore Cottage as anything other than a private residence? That is the question at the heart of this controversy.

Monday 24 June 2019

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 15

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 61

It has now been more than 11 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 11 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.

Your Future And Mine

Net zero emissions by 2050. Oh, and we are not trading enough with India. Spot the deliberate mistake. There needs to be an all-of-the-above energy policy, based around civil nuclear power and around this country's vast reserves of coal.

Do people think that wind turbines grow organically out of the ground? There are no renewables without a steel industry, and anyone who needs to do so needs to look up how steel is manufactured. For that reason, Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat Councillors recently resolved unanimously to sink a new deep mine at Whitehaven.

At least, that is the reason given at this initial stage in the process. As soon as Margaret Thatcher died, then we knew that the miners would be back. As soon as Jeremy Corbyn became the Leader of the Opposition, then we knew that the miners would be back within 10 years. As soon as Donald Trump became the President of the United States, then we knew that, by crossparty consensus, the miners would be back within five years. And now, here we are.

"Do you regret the defeat of the miners in 1985?" is the Yes-No question that infallibly separates the real Left from the fake Left, and the real patriots and the real supporters of traditional family life from the fake patriots and the fake supporters of traditional family life. The correct answer is, "Yes." Britain was the world leader in clean coal technology until the Miners' Strike, and it ought to be so again. We need never fight another war over Arab oil or Russian gas. We ought never to have fought such wars in the first place.

As for trade with India, the more of it, the better. This is not about Imperial nostalgia, of which of course the Indians themselves have none. The people who ran the Congress Party in the olden days had more than might have been expected, but not as much as we liked to imagine. And the people who run the BJP today have none whatever. But so what? The business of business is business. Just as good relations with Pakistan are important for relations with China, and vice versa, so good relations with India are good for relations with Russia, and vice versa. All would be essential to any solution in Kashmir.

If there were to be an Indian Huawei, then we ought to consider its products on their merits. Of course, it would be better if there were a British Huawei, but here we are. It is not anti-Indian to support British participation in China's Belt and Road Initiative. If there were to be an Indian Belt and Road Initiative, then we ought to be on that, too. Be at the table, or be on the menu. Be on the bus, or be under it. And be clear that the abuse of Dalits, Christians, Muslims and others by the governing party's members and supporters in India is as bad as the abuse of anyone in China, and vice versa.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare. And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

A Double Codswalloping

First Nick Clegg dismisses the idea of Russian interference on the Brexit referendum.

Then Arron Banks announces that he is suing Carole Codswallop.

The Observer needs to stop its cruel parading of this sad woman's delusions.

No Turkish Delight

Take no great heart from the result in Istanbul. Turkey does not really have a political spectrum. It has two Far Rights, an Islamist one and a secular Nationalist one.

The second most important country in NATO, from NATO's own point of view, is always run by one or the other. And we shall always bound to defend it. Until we have to wit to get out of NATO.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Not A Private Matter

An entire article in the Mail on Sunday pretty much called Boris Johnson a wife-beater. There is a sense that the public is being let in on something that political and media London has always known

Although Elizabeth Day's article was not illustrated with a picture of Johnson, but with a picture of Mark Field, who has to be kept on because the Conservative Party would now lose Cities of London and Westminster.

It has written off Brecon and Radnorshire so completely that it has selected as its candidate the sitting, convicted MP. And it is now a matter of record that a Johnson Government would not have a majority in the House of Commons, forcing a General Election at which several large donors to his party would simply have turned off the tap.

All in all, another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Sunday 23 June 2019

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 14

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 60

It has now been more than 11 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 11 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.

The Mother of All Talk Shows

On Sputnik Radio at seven o'clock this evening.

Officers Attended?

When first asked about it, the Police lied about having been called to Boris Johnson's flat. Only when they had been found out did they admit that it had ever happened. That is how gangster states work, and this has been one longer than anywhere else in the world.

Although it has been a long time since we had a Prime Minister who embodied that status quite so completely or so brazenly as Johnson did. It will be interesting to see whether anyone will dare to press the Police and others on their protection of, and enforcement for, the Boss once he really is the Boss. Probably not.

So get used to this kind of thing. If, for some unknown reason, you were not already. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Saturday 22 June 2019

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 13

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 59

It has now been more than 11 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 11 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.

Urgent De-Escalation

Dr Andrew Murrison is an interesting figure. He was one of only six Conservative MPs to vote against the Iraq War. As a Naval Reservist, he was then called up to serve in it.

When he arrives in Tehran, then he should simply refuse to leave without Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

One way or another, the next Prime Minister is going to need a Foreign Secretary. He could do a lot worse than the man who had pulled that one off.

Johnson's Britain

Applying the law bequeathed by the Thatcher Government, and already used by our next Prime Minister on at least one occasion. Good God, the man does not even know how many children he has. Keep saying that until it quite sinks in. Our next Prime Minister does not know how many children he has.

No one calls the Police just because the couple next door is having a late night slanging match about spilled wine. And while publishing a recording of that slanging match may not be the most broadsheet thing that The Guardian has ever done, it has at least drawn attention to Boris Johnson's chaotic domestic life, the centre which is about to be moved to 10 Downing Street.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

One-Fingered Salute

When Jack Letts went off to join the so-called Islamic State, then it was being funded, armed, trained, and very publicly supported by the United Kingdom and the United States. Or at least, it was being so on one side of the essentially imaginary Sykes-Picot Line. The side, in fact, on which he is still living. 

All in all, £223 from his parents, or even the extra thousand of which they have been acquitted, ought to be the least of anyone's concerns, and they ought to have been a long way down the list of people who needed to stand to trial.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Not Just Immoral, But Illegal; Not Just Heartless, But Hypocritical

Peter Oborne writes:

When I was at school, we were taught in history lessons about Britain’s shameful failure to take a stand against fascism in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s.

I believe that future generations will look back with equal horror at our role in the Saudi bombing of Yemen over the past five years.

Britain has continued to supply arms and military assistance to the House of Saud while it has pursued a murderous policy of destroying the lives and livelihoods of thousands of innocent Yemeni people.

On Thursday, the Court of Appeal ruled in a landmark decision that Britain’s supply of arms to Saudi Arabia was not just immoral, but illegal.

It’s an episode that exposes Britain as not just heartless, but hypocritical.

Our protestations of horror against the atrocities of the Assad regime in Damascus carry no weight at all, given our readiness to stand idly by while nearby the Saudis inflict such bloodshed in the Yemen.

Even Jeremy Corbyn has failed to bring this back to the floor of the House of Commons, so many are his party's MPs who are in the very deep pockets of the House of Saud.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Friday 21 June 2019

Blade Runner

Who is to blame for London's knife crime emergency? Is it Sajid Javid? Or is it Sadiq Khan? It is both of them. 

Javid's days are numbered. And as for Khan, it is time for Paul Embery to declare his candidacy for Mayor of London.

By The Neck

There was absolutely no risk that someone who had got in past the same security as Mark Field might have been armed. The Westminster Bridge attacker did not enter the Palace of Westminster, nor even enter New Palace Yard by normal means, so do not give me that.

And when you can be fined £150 for feeding a pigeon, then the Conservatives do not really believe that it is merely enough to suspend Field as a Minister. But they held onto Cities of London and Westminster by a mere 3,148 votes last time, when they were not on a mere nine per cent of the national vote. So they cannot get rid of him and risk a by-election.

Imagine that, say, Jeremy Corbyn had done what Field did. Or imagine that it had happened in a workingmen's club. Yet on this occasion, none of the numerous Police Officers present even made an arrest. Or, at least, they did not make an arrest of Mark Field. This is a gangster state, and men do not come much more made than the Conservative MP for Cities of London and Westminster. While there still is one.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Initial Approval?

If you believe that Donald Trump pulled back in the night from war with Iran, then you will believe absolutely anything. This is how psychological warfare works, and while he might not know that, the people around him certainly do.

The Democratic Party is determined not to nominate anyone worth voting for, so Trump is going to win again. That party will then have been defeated twice by Donald Trump. There will be no way back from that. It will not survive. Nor will it deserve to survive.

Remaining Difference

Laura Pidcock did well on last night's Question Time. But she said quite clearly that she was in favour of a second referendum on EU membership, leading to a Remain vote. Not, "Even Remain would be better than the deal on offer." Remain for the sake of Remain. That is not my view. In fact, I am not in favour of a second referendum at all.

I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Battle Field

If you thought that Mark Field was bad, then just wait until you hear what has been going on in France for months on end.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 12

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 58

It has now been more than 11 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 11 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.

Thursday 20 June 2019

Ad Multos Annos

I have been a Catholic for 20 years today.

God is good.

Corpus Christi

Two down, one to go, on getting back the proper Holy Days of Obligation, as kept by the rest of the world, including the Pope. Check his Twitter feed today if you do not believe me. He knows what day it is. Astonishingly, the Sacred Heart, the date of which is based on that of Corpus Christi, is still being kept on the right day, i.e., next Friday. Do they just not know, or something?

Anyway, to business. Do many Catholics still believe in transubstantiation? Well, if such things were ever taught in Catholic schools, then more of them might. But anyway, so what? What matters is that the Church teaches it. Catholics who dissent from the Teaching of the Church are just wrong, objectively speaking. That is all that there is to it.

Only the Catholic Church provides such objectivity, which is perfectly encapsulated in transubstantiation. It was only from Christianity in general, and from Catholicism in particular, that science acquired the idea that some propositions were just plain true, so that others were just plain false. And it was only from Christianity in general, and from Catholicism in particular, that science acquired the idea that there was an investigable order in the universe; even if that order is a law of chaos, then the point still stands.

Faced with a changed intellectual environment that denies those foundations rather than simply presupposing them, then science must return to the system that first asserted them in the midst of a former such environment. That system is Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular.

Thus, for example, by affirming the objective existence of the substance distinct from the accidents, transubstantiation also affirms the objective existence of the accidents, which are the objects of scientific investigation. Transubstantiation is the bulwark against the Postmodern assault on science. Nothing else is.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 11

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 57

It has now been more than 11 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 11 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.

Rank

When he was about the age that I am now, then Gordon Brown was given the shock of his life when he was told for the first time that he was simply not posh enough for something.

Educated all the way to doctoral level entirely in Scotland, before having come up through the Scottish Labour Party to sit in Parliament for his own home town, it had simply never occurred to this son of a Church of Scotland minister, of such distinction that his collected sermons were in that very year published in book form, that anyone could possibly have looked at him and seen a pleb. But in an event that would by all accounts change his entire personality, suddenly he quite realised what it was to be Scottish or Welsh in England, or to be so at an English outpost such as Fettes. 

At half that age, I had the same experience of suddenly realising quite what it was to be from the North or the Midlands in the South, or at a Southern outpost even as far north as Durham. Bless him, and it was not his fault, but I remember how an exact contemporary of mine, from exactly the same background including a comprehensive school, was treated as stratospherically posher because he was from the South. That said, it never got him promoted over my head despite having been my apprentice. Brown wins the legitimate grievance stakes hands down with that one.

Now, I am not knocking God's Own University. It finally took away my staff card and email address at the start of the academic year that is now drawing to a close, because Oliver Kamm or some such person must have threatened to make a fuss about my case. But if it had held out until April, then I would probably still have had them. 

And I am still very much around the place. One of its most senior figures recently described me as "family", and introduced me to a very distinguished visitor as, "Once of the last links to the gentler old Durham." So I am not going back, because I have never gone away. Nevertheless, and in fact this is a good thing, it gave my 20-year-old self a class consciousness that I had never previously had, but which I have never lost. That would be downright preposterous to most people who met me in ordinary life. It would have been then, and it would be now, but here we are. 

In like manner, when I was at the very late age for such things of 25, the right-wing Labour machine in County Durham, which is now engaged in a criminal conspiracy to imprison me, made me politically black. At least half of people have to be told that I am mixed-race, and the most ethnic thing about me is my fondness for Saint Helenian food, a taste that was shared by my blond-haired and blue-eyed father. But if you are so black that Tony Blair's Chief Whip, who went on to grace the present MP for North West Durham's election literature in 2017, will not have you as a council candidate in her constituency, then you are politically black. Between that and the imperialist war, in April 2003, politically black was what I became, just as I had become politically working-class in October 1997.

Bringing us to Boris Johnson, who is part-Turkish, and who knows what else through the Ottoman Empire. His policy on Iran will presumably be directed by Darius Guppy. But more than being the heir to any of the Royal Families to which he is related, he is the Heir to Blair, in that a man with Johnson's record, a man who does not even known how many children he has, can become Party Leader and Prime Minister simply by pulling class rank.

Not only that, but no Gordon Brown figure presents himself. Jeremy Hunt may be stung to discover that he is "only Charterhouse", but that would not be most people's view of his alma mater. Even Michael Gove was at Robert Gordon's College, and in fact he has lived in the posher parts of England for most of his life. His survival in public life is due entirely to the principle that "posh people are allowed", even if it is starting to look as if the courts are applying a Gove's Law to drug offences, at least excusing people from prison because they are no worse than a former Lord Chancellor.

A quarter of a century on, and Tony Blair has finished the work of Margaret Thatcher in turning Britain into the country that Marxists had always said it was, even though before those two it never really had been. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Block Voting

The Government needs to press ahead with its anti-pornography legislation, and it needs to go a lot further than that, too.

Since there cannot be a “free” market in general, but not in drugs or prostitution, including pornography, so there must not be a “free” market in general. Since there cannot be a “free” market in drugs or prostitution, but not in general, so there must not be a “free” market in drugs or prostitution.

We need to halt and reverse the proliferation of lap-dancing clubs, and we need to apply the technology that is already used for age verification in order to block pornographic websites altogether. Parliamentary Lobby access must be denied to the publications of companies that also published pornography, and to broadcasters that shared platforms with it, such as Freeview, Virgin or Sky. 

We need to define obscenity as material depicting acts that were themselves illegal or which was reasonably likely to incite or encourage such acts, with sentencing the same as for the illegal act in question in each case. And we need to make it a criminal offence for anyone aged 21 or over to buy or sell sex, with equal sentencing on both sides. This would apply in the same way to photographed or filmed prostitution as to any other kind. The Universal Basic Income, and Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee, would remove any conceivable excuse for prostituting oneself in any way. 

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Leading The Charges

Remember Lockerbie? One acquittal. Acquittal. Found not guilty. And one obviously innocent man who ended up being released on "compassionate" grounds. That is a famous case, but not a particularly unusual one.

And now, quietness bellows around the naming of the "suspects" in the downing of MH17. Anyone would think that the world did not want to know. Anyone would think that nobody believed a word of it. Not about the Russians in Salisbury. Not about the Iranians in the Gulf of Oman. And not about this.

On each of these matters, Jeremy Corbyn's only problem has been his indulgence of any part of the official line. He ought to have led the charge against it. He is of course badly constrained by the dreadful body of MPs that he has inherited.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare. 

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Persian Versions

In a way, Mike Pompeo is right. There are certainly Sunni terrorists in Iran, in the form of Jundallah and its various splinters. They have links to "al-Qaeda". And "al-Qaeda", of course, was created by the CIA, which has never stopped funding, arming or training it against the right enemies. For example, Iran.

Who is saying any of this out loud? No one, that I can tell. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare. 

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Questions And Answers

There can never be too much media exposure of Laura Pidcock as far as I am concerned. But two Conservative MPs, both of them serving Ministers, will make up a further 40 per cent of tonight's Question Time panel. This, and Stanley Johnson on Tuesday's Newsnight, are the BBC's idea of balance.

Now that there is officially an Israel Test for being so much as let onto a phone-in, to the extent that the BBC has apologised for its failure to apply that Test, take note that The Mother of All Talk Shows will return at seven o'clock on Sunday evening, but on Sputnik Radio, which interviews me from time to time, which is available online, and which, though based in Edinburgh, is beyond the reach of Ofcom.

Beyond that, another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

A Call To Arms

As arms sales to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen are ruled unlawful, the people who claim that Jeremy Corbyn is "defending Iran" are now also condemning him for having been right all along about this. The House of Saud has very deep pockets.

And the people who are in those pockets are not only on the Conservative side. The last time that Corbyn brought this matter to the floor of the House of Commons, then the Labour abstention rate was so high that he has never done it again. But he should. The list of Labour MPs with leave of absence should be published in advance, and Constituency Labour Parties invited to draw their own conclusions.

Having begun by asking, "Do I have the honour of addressing the great David Lindsay?", George Galloway once promised me live on air that he would put that suggestion to his friend, the Chief Whip, Nick Brown, before ending the call by expressing the hope that I would stand for Parliament. Well, over to George to bring this again to Nick Brown's attention.

Beyond that, another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare. And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

The Lanchester Review: Clueless and Shameless; Joe Biden, Staggering Frontrunner

Wednesday 19 June 2019

Restored To Full Functionality


After two weeks on Twitter's naughty step. Do please give me a Follow. Very many thanks.

Also, please Follow Consett Leftfooter, who has been invaluable through all of this. If I can rely on anyone, then it is on the Consett Leftfooters.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 10

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Healthy Discharge Watch: Day 56

It has now been 11 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. 11 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.

Family Viewing

Last night's Newsnight, discussing the Conservative Leadership Debate, featured four panellists. One of them was Boris Johnson's father. They would not do that on the radio in Saint Helena. But no one at the BBC seemed to think that it was at all odd. So we had better get used to it.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.