Monday 30 September 2019

Councillor Watch: Day 78

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 113

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.

All Aboard?

By supporting bus services, however weakly, this Conservative Government puts to shame the Labour Durham County Council.

Squeeze Him Back

Charlotte Edwardes should either sue Boris Johnson for having called her a liar, although as a journalist she is presumably unwilling to invoke the English law of defamation.

Or she should call the Police and report having been assaulted by him.

If, however, she did neither of those things, then it would be impossible to take her seriously.

Sunday 29 September 2019

Councillor Watch: Day 77

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 112

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.

Suddenly Upright?

If Matt Hancock is still in post tomorrow morning, then Boris Johnson's response to Charlotte Edwardes is, "Yes, but it doesn't matter?"

Well, doesn't it, then?

Old Mold

Ann Clwyd is to retire. Ann Clwyd, who falsely claimed that Saddam Hussein was feeding people into a giant paper shredder. That lie was widely repeated.

Ann Clwyd's maiden name was Lewis, and her married name is Roberts. Yet she chooses to be known by the name of an administrative unit, as if John Prescott were to call himself John Humberside. That administrative unit was created when she was 37, and abolished when she was 59. 

But she couldn't very well have called herself Ann Flintshire, could she? It's a Kunta Kinte thing. And who would wish to be called Ann Mold? Does even Ann Mold wish to be called Ann Mold? I very much doubt it.

For The Record?

In his autobiography, David Cameron claims that he only ever sort of fell into politics.

You see, in his final year as an undergraduate, he answered an advertisement for the Conservative Research Department on a kind of spec.

That must have been why he had applied to read PPE at Oxford in the first place.

Pull the other one, it plays the Eton Boating Song.

Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto


The Supreme Court was created to make this country more like the United States; not the Continent, and so much for "the Anglosphere" there.

And having now entered its pomp, it is therefore on course to strike down anything that might damage the bank balances of the people, such as Gina Miller, who might be in a position to bring cases before it. 

How would the Attlee Government have fared against a Supreme Court? About as well as it would have fared against the EU.

Appointment to the Supreme Court may need to be for life, and direct election would be disastrous. But we need some level of democratic political control over those appointments.

Some hope of that from our Liberal Establishment politicians. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham.

The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Saturday 28 September 2019

Councillor Watch: Day 76

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 111

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.

Impossible To Carry The Heavy Burden?

Continental and American newspaper readers had long known about Mrs Simpson when the Abdication Crisis broke like a thunderclap over the Britain of 1936.

And Internet or no Internet, since most British people will understandably always rely on the British media for their news about Britain, here we are again.

Whatever is the main news in this country tomorrow, it will not be Jennifer Arcuri and Hacker House. Indeed, they will hardly be mentioned.

Until, suddenly, they will be. A lot.

Don't Go Barking

Don't get excited about Margaret Hodge.

She is more than capable of whipping up enough of a fuss to save herself. She has done it before.

Holding out any hope of her deselection would only set yourself up for disappointment.

Universal? Credit?

Of course Jeremy Corbyn knows that the solution will eventually be the Universal Basic Income, undergirding Modern Monetary Theory's Jobs Guarantee, and undergirding Universal Basic Services.

But until he can quite bring himself to say that, then we ought of course to welcome measures such as the reduction of the five-week waiting time for Universal Credit to two weeks, the suspension of sanctions, the abolition of the two-child limit, and the abolition of the Work Capability Assessment. The five-week waiting time is deliberately designed to ensure that a certain number of claimants will die before they have ever been paid.

Why, though, did Corbyn go to Iain Duncan Smith's constituency to announce the intended end of these evils? Duncan Smith resigned over them. It was Harriet Harman, the next Speaker of the House of Commons, who whipped Labour MPs to abstain rather than oppose them. And the Work Capability Assessment, with its horrifying body count, was introduced by Yvette Cooper, who is still The Guardian's choice for Leader of 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 is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Oh Dear, Jess Phillips

Friday 27 September 2019

Councillor Watch: Day 75

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 110

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.

Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You?

I am delighted to learn that every federal objective of the American Democratic Party has now been met, leaving it with nothing better to do than to seek to impeach Donald Trump even though it knows perfectly well that his party controls the Senate.

I am seriously considering emigration to what must be that workers' and consumers' paradise.

Thursday 26 September 2019

Councillor Watch: Day 74

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 109

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.

Bringing Down, Rising Up

John Bercow has just assured Richard Burgon that there cannot be a General Election before 31st October. Before 5th November, in fact. But it will not be Brexit that brings down Boris Johnson, as it was not "Europe" that brought down Margaret Thatcher.

Read the extremely bitter chapter on the Poll Tax in Thatcher's autobiography. As far as she was concerned, the Militant Tendency brought the people who would not pay out onto the streets, and her own party responded by getting rid of both the Poll Tax and her.

She was right. That was exactly what happened. It was just blamed on "Europe" for the sake of a sort of seemliness, at least by comparison. Likewise, the affair of Jennifer Arcuri and Hacker House will bring down Johnson. It will just be blamed on Brexit for the sake of a sort of seemliness, at least by comparison.

The nightmare is forming in my mind that this could be a five-year Parliament, passing literally no legislation, since there is no majority, while "extending" Article 50 endlessly. But another hung Parliament is coming at some point, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. 

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Concilio et Labore

The House of Commons has just voted not to go into recess for the Conservative Party Conference. 

They ought to be, and they probably are, dancing in the streets of Manchester at the prospect of not having to host that Conference, the most boorish, drunken, drugged-up, entitled event since the demise of New Labour.

In particular, Manchester's women and black people will be a lot safer tonight than they were this morning. 

Manchester will be well worth visiting next week. A civilised place, with no public school drinking games played by men in late middle age, and with no one burning £50 notes in front of the homeless. 

So much nicer without the Bullingdon Club, it consorts, and their wannabes. I may even have a look over.

The Golders Green Golden Girl?

The Liberal Democrats have nominated Luciana Berger at Finchley and Golders Green. But there was already a duly selected Lib Dem candidate there, one Clareine Enderby.

Now, candidates can be replaced. But if the Lib Dems were to do so on specifically ethnic grounds, then that would be illegal, and Berger, Jo Swinson and the rest of them should look forward to Ms Enderby's day in court. She would be the poster woman for all the long-serving and long-suffering Lib Dems who wanted their party back.

And another hung Parliament is coming. We need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

In The Front

Bloody Jess Phillips again. I implored George Galloway to stand at Birmingham Yardley. Someone really should. 

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham.

The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Frère Jacques

Jacques Chirac was on old crook, but they knew that when they elected him. He did at least have the wit to oppose the Iraq War. He had been decorated in Algeria. He knew what these things were really like. 

And yes, he was protecting French interests in Iraq. That was his job. It is possible that with his passing, we have seen the passing of the last President of the French Republic, properly so called.

Wednesday 25 September 2019

No Steel In Her Backbone

Clearly otherwise banned from the airwaves during the Labour Party Conference, and notably absent from the platform, Laura Pidcock did appear on Monday's Politics Live.

There she informed the nation and the world that people from Consett could not get into good universities. Yes, she really did say that.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham.

The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

A Swede Among The Turnips?

Laura Pidcock has clearly been told not to tweet too much this week. But she has found the time to pay court to Greta Thunberg. Well, of course.

If Ms Pidcock had her way, then Ms Thunberg would already be of voting age.

During the impending General Election campaign, her considerable family wealth and her vast corporate sponsorship would easily stretch to bringing her here to the former steel town and the former pit villages of North West Durham.

She could extol the wonders of deindustrialisation. Then I and others could reply. Come on, Greta. I dare you.

The Blond Leading

For 29 years, the Conservative Party's base, as the Americans say, has been unable to forgive any of that party's six Leaders for the crime of not being Margaret Thatcher.

But the seventh has managed that remarkable feat. And who is this towering figure? Boris Johnson.

This is what civilisational collapse looks like.

Material Difference

If you have given birth to a child, then you are its mother.

What have we become, that a court needs to say that?

But still, a court has said it. All is not lost.

Free Movement?

As the platform party headed back to Westminster, a demob happy Labour Party Conference has passed an immigration policy that will never make it into a General Election manifesto.

But it is right on about thing. Nationality ought to have no bearing as to whether or not a legal resident had the vote.

Just so long as parliamentary candidates had to be British Citizens in Great Britain, or British or Irish Citizens in Northern Ireland. No party would in practice give its local opponents the open goal of putting up anyone to whom that did not apply.

People who are going bananas today ought to bear in mind that Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals already can and do vote for the House of Commons, and could in principle stand for it. It is Americans and Israelis who cannot.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham.

The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Putting It Wright

When the bus service is back in public ownership, then not only will it be vastly expanded, and not only will it be free at the point of use, but the building and maintenance of the buses themselves will also be safely in public ownership.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Councillor Watch: Day 73

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 108

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.

Tuesday 24 September 2019

Time For Motion

If the first item of business when the House of Commons met tomorrow were not a motion of no confidence with a view to a General Election, then what would have been the point of bringing MPs back from their unexpected holidays?

Beyond The Fringe

Full solidarity with the sisters at Woman's Place UK, whose fringe meeting at the Labour Party Conference last night was besieged by a jeering mob that banged on the windows for hours.

This was not an isolated incident. Men dressed as men would be taken on if they behaved like this. But men dressed as women are given a free pass for verbal and physical abuse.

Well, not by me, they wouldn't be.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham.

The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

The Beast, Not The GNU

There is no such office as "Mother of the House". The second most senior MP after Ken Clarke is Dennis Skinner.

Why is no one calling for Skinner to head that pernicious thing, a "Government of National Unity"?

Articles

On one side, Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump. So much for Trump as a Russian puppet there. 

On the other side, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden.

In the endlessly useful words of Henry Kissinger, "It's a pity that only one of them can lose."

Councillor Watch: Day 72

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 107

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.

Drugs And Guns

A publicly owned generic drug manufacturer is an excellent idea. But there would be serious resistance. Big Pharma is very well-connected in and around Parliament. As is the arms trade, which has far more political clout than its economic importance would warrant.

We need the renationalisation of BAE Systems as the monopoly supplier to our own Armed Forces, with a ban on all sale of arms abroad, and with a comprehensive programme of diversification in order to preserve the skills that were currently employed in the arms industry.

Most Labour MPs and practically all of the rest would have kittens over any of this. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Without The Consent

The Court of Session said "misled", and that to "an improper purpose". At least or at most, the Supreme Court has not overturned that. Any MP or interviewer should now ask Boris Johnson the question. Any answer other than "No" would be "Yes". But it is already a matter of record. 

The people who are trying to say otherwise are as silly as the people who say that Tony Blair never lied about Iraq. In fact, they are even sillier. Blair himself positively denies ever having lied about Iraq. But since this ruling today, Johnson has never positively denied having lied to the Queen, as the Court of Session has said that he has done, in a ruling that has not been overturned by the Supreme Court.

What would Enoch Powell have made, either of lying to the Queen, or of proroguing Parliament without its consent? The Statute Law now needs to establish that Parliament cannot be prorogued without the consent of the House of Commons. Or dissolved, which consent would be deemed to have been given by the Government's loss of a confidence motion, even, as in 1979, by only one vote.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Did Boris Johnson Lie To The Queen?

Ask him. Anything other than the one word "No" would be "Yes".

There will always be a few people who maintained that Boris Johnson did not lie to the Queen (although he himself is not bothering to say that), as there will always be a few people who maintained that Tony Blair did not lie about Iraq.

But neither of them will deserve to be taken seriously by anybody else. And neither of them ever will be taken seriously by anybody else.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham.

The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

The Supreme Point

Look, I do not much care for Tony Blair's Supreme Court in principle, or for Gina Miller and that crowd in any way at all. But Left Brexiteers, what would Tony Benn have said to the prorogation of Parliament without its consent? And Right Brexiteers, Boris Johnson lied to the Queen. He lied to the Queen. Have you got that? He lied to the Queen.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Monday 23 September 2019

Prevent This

I’ve got the key to the door, never been 42 before. But among the birthday cards today was also the following:

Dear Mr. Lindsay,

As the holder of a politically protected position within Durham County Council that makes it impossible for me to identify myself, it gives me great pleasure to inform you that the Council has finally referred you under the Prevent Strategy. Your extremist views on Brexit, economics, NATO, Trident, antisemitism, Julian Assange, abortion rights, transgender rights, the right to die, so-called “fathers’ rights”, Russia, China, Syria, Iran, Yemen, sexual offences, drugs, immigration, climate change, and a wide range of other issues have no place in our County. You are a professional misogynist, transphobe, antisemite, religious fundamentalist, ally of dictators and climate change denier who bases himself on the Left for recruitment purposes as a well-known radicaliser of young men and teenage boys. Some of us have been fighting for this referral for a very long time. The relevant authorities will be in touch. David Lindsay MP? David Lindsay in HMP, more like.

Now, I have had all sorts of funny stuff over the last two and a half years. But this one might be worth keeping an eye on. Bring it on, say I. My election literature is already going to say “Banned From Twitter”.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

The Boss

Happy Birthday, Bruce Springsteen, 70 today.

In 1985, he sent $20,000 to the Northumberland and Durham Miners' Support Group.

Councillor Watch: Day 71

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 106

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.

Grant Application To This

We all know what they really mean about Boris Johnson and Jennifer Arcuri.

Any other Prime Minister would have resigned today, and would probably be in Police custody right now for such misappropriation of public funds.

What, exactly, is preventing the latter, even if Johnson's personality disorder is preventing the former?

Owen Goal

Remember Owen Smith? Probably not. But do look him up. His best idea was bringing back the Ministry of Labour, so that, now with tablets rather than with clipboards, someone would go round workplaces and check that workers' rights were being upheld. His worst idea was a second referendum on EU membership, to cancel out the first one. Both are now Labour Party policy.

At the very least, then, the position of Shadow Minister of Labour ought to be given to the man who thought of it, Owen Smith. I assume that there is a Shadow Minister of Labour, but the fact that even I cannot name that person speaks for itself. It needs to someone who can make the case forcefully against most Labour and practically all other MPs, who will be having none of this otherwise.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Not The Real Deal

Neither Brexit motion before this afternoon's Labour Party Conference proposes campaigning in favour of the deal that a Labour or a Labour-led Government would itself have negotiated. Give that a moment to sink in. If both motions passed, or if both failed, due to mass abstention either way, then who could be remotely surprised?

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

A Political Prisoner

Craig Murray writes: 

As of today Julian Assange has finished his jail sentence for missing police bail. There is no Swedish charge or request for his extradition, those risibly flimsy sexual allegations no longer being needed by the state.

As of today, Julian Assange is in prison purely and simply for publishing secrets of the US state, revealing war crimes and the dirtiest of diplomacy.

I should like to dedicate this post to all of those in the title [David Allen Green, Joshua Rosenberg, Joan Smith, Hadley Freeman, Jess Phillips, David Aaronovitch and the entire staff of the Guardian/Observer] and dozens of their colleagues in the British “liberal” establishment, all of whom claimed that Julian’s fears of being incarcerated in the UK or Europe facing extradition for publishing US secrets were entirely bogus and a mere pretext for hiding, and that this would never happen.

Those of us who said this was a real fear and a real danger were, myself most definitely included, derided as fantasist, deluded, paranoid and conspiracy theorist.

So now Julian is a political prisoner, a journalist in a maximum security prison, probably for years, waiting for his case to be heard and extradition faced for the grievous crime of doing his job and publishing.

While the British liberal establishment simply buries its nose in its perfumed handkerchief and pretends that the fear it derided as imaginary, has not come true.

Unfit And Improper

The last time that I checked, the Football Association had a fit and proper person test for the proprietors of football clubs.

Fairly or otherwise, it is inconceivable that a Premier League club could be owned and chaired by a close relative and financial dependent of Hassan Rouhani, or Vladimir Putin, or Nicolás Maduro, or Xi Jinping. 

Yet Sheffield United is now owned and chaired by Prince Musa'ad bin Khalid bin Musa'ad bin Abdulrahman Al Saud. A member of the House of Saud has passed the fit and proper person test. 

This calls for the most urgent investigation.

Visibly

Apparently, today is Bisexual Visibility Day.

Bisexuality is sexual attraction to both sexes. Both. Of two.

Stick that in your LGBT.

Unicorns Are Not Real, Until They Are

At 10:30 tomorrow morning, the Union with Scotland will be doomed.

Either the Supreme Court will rule that the Parliament of the United Kingdom cannot be prorogued without its consent, since it is the constitutional successor of the Scottish Parliament that existed until 1707, in which case what is the Scottish Parliament that has existed since 1999?

Or the Supreme Court will rule that the Parliament of the United Kingdom can be prorogued without its consent, since it is not the constitutional successor of the Scottish Parliament that existed until 1707, in which case by what authority has it legislated for Scotland at least since 1999, if ever?

Of course the hugely ambitious Joanna Cherry knows all of this. I remain as opposed as ever to the principle of Scottish independence. I would campaign against it with every fibre of my being. But when the facts change, and all that.

No Revolution In This Resolution

Yesterday's Labour Party Conference resolution on commercial schools will never find its way into a General Election manifesto.

But even if it did, then it would still be electorally irrelevant.

A very hard core of the extremely small number of people who use those schools will vote Labour until the end of time, while the rest will never do so under any circumstances.

The Nuclear Test


It is also a direct challenge to next week's Conservative Party Conference, at which people in a position to give effect to it right now will stand up and do so, or not.

Building A New Britain Outside The EU

The future is bright. First elected in 2017, the 34-year-old he MP for Crewe and Nantwich, Laura Smith, writes:

When all the dust has settled, most expect Labour’s Brexit policy will end up as a commitment to negotiate an alternative deal with the EU and to then put that deal to the public in a “confirmatory vote” with Remain on the ballot paper.

This is an extraordinary shift. Only two years ago, we mobilised to fight a general election, promising to respect the referendum without even committing to a transition period, let alone membership of the single market or a customs union.

Yet, despite this shift, Jeremy stands accused of “betraying Remainers.” Sadly, our political discourse is in the grip of a culture war where anything Brexit-related is framed in this increasingly polarised way.

Labour MPs who suggest that we ought to leave the EU are accused of acting out of self-interest, of pandering to xenophobes simply to keep their seats. It often feels as though left-wing Euroscepticism has been scrubbed from our history.

The labour movement is certainly a long way from the 1970s, when most of the opposition to Britain’s EU membership came from Labour politicians and trade unionists. But there is a powerful left critique that needs to be heard, perhaps more urgently than ever before.

Even as recently as 2013, there was a “Labour for a Referendum” campaign group. In 2015, after the Tories unexpectedly won an outright majority with a promise to hold a referendum, Owen Jones was calling on the left for Britain’s EU withdrawal to be put on the agenda.

By this time, Labour had opted to support the government’s Referendum Bill and, soon after, a left-wing Eurosceptic and lifelong socialist would be elected as leader of the party.

Even Paul Mason admitted that the left-wing case for Brexit is strategic and clear, highlighting how the treaties lock in austerity and neoliberal policies.

Despite supporting Remain for other reasons, his 2016 article conceded that the EU provided the most hospitable ecosystem in the developed world for tax-dodging elites. The EU, he says, “is not — and cannot become — a democracy.”

Then came that historic vote. Leave won by a small margin but with the support of around a third of Labour voters. Significantly, the three lowest-ranking socio-economic groups are believed to have voted Leave by a majority of two-thirds.

If that result was anything, it was a resounding demand for change by those who benefited the least from our economic status quo.

Labour then voted to trigger Article 50 without a deal in sight.

All of this happened before I even set foot in Westminster, having promised voters that I would respect the referendum. To this day, I believe it is vital that the Labour Party has a serious offer for those who wish to leave the EU at the next election.

That general election campaign should focus on building a new Britain, one with full employment, a real living wage and advanced workers’ rights. Public ownership and progressive taxation would be just a couple of tools used to distribute both wealth and power fairly.

New technology would be embraced for the common good. High-wage, high-productivity jobs would be made available in transformed workplaces where a four-day week and true industrial democracy had become the norm. Full collective bargaining coverage would ensure that no workplace or community was left behind.

The renewal of our democracy at every level, with meaningful devolution through radical federalism, would make our government both more responsive and more accountable to the people. Well-funded public services would be run in the public interest and not for profit.

Racism and fascism would be decimated, not least by stamping out the conditions in which they thrive. This new Britain would not follow the US blindly on imperialist crusades in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world.

I am certain that this vision would have the support of the Labour Party membership and the vast majority of the public, too.

In a Westminster Hall debate last year, I set out the reasons why I believe we must leave the EU to realise this vision. Many others believe that “Remain and reform” is the route we should take.

Despite this difference, we can all agree with what Jeremy said in his Coventry speech: “We cannot be held back, inside or outside the EU, from taking the steps we need to support cutting-edge industries and local business, stop the tide of privatisation and outsourcing or from preventing employers being able to import cheap agency labour to undercut existing pay and conditions.”

In that same speech, he rightly pledged to “negotiate protections, clarifications or exemptions in relation to privatisation and public service competition directives, state aid and procurement rules and the posted workers directive.”

The Labour Party might feel it needs a second vote to settle the debate over whether membership of the EU helps or hinders (or even prevents) this vision being realised.

If this is the case, it is vitally important that Labour’s negotiating team is made up of people who understand the arguments that have long been made by left-wing Eurosceptics.

Perhaps even more importantly, that team should consist of people who are committed to campaigning to leave the EU in any subsequent public vote.

This is a defining moment for the Labour Party. We owe it to all those whose lives would be transformed by a radical socialist programme to get this right.

Sunday 22 September 2019

Councillor Watch: Day 70

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 105

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.

And All Parts East

The rabble in Hong Kong shows it true colours, lashing out at the failure of the United States to stage the invasion that the CIA paid it to take to the streets to demand.

The CIA promised the rabble great things when the dismemberment of China came. But the dismemberment of China is not coming after all. And whatever the faults of the present regime, thank God for that. It is impossible to imagine a greater humanitarian catastrophe.

Meanwhile, as Iran prepares to release the Stena Impero, it is clearly open to suggestions as to how to keep Britain, if not onside, then at least not offside. It should now offer to release Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, as demanded by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, if Britain also released Julian Assange, as demanded by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

In the bigger picture, and for all the touching Iranian paranoia about British influence, we have no quarrel with Iran. The state sponsor of terrorism on our streets, as on China's and Iran's, is Saudi Arabia. Anyone's bombing of that terrorism's money wells ought to leave our eyes as dry as the Arabian Desert itself.

Extremely few members of Parliament understand any of this. Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Left Behind?

I knew Andrew Fisher before he was famous. I even attended one of his book launches, which may have been his only ever book launch. We are the Left Behind, cut adrift by Corbynism for the sake of the EU and the money markets, of identity politics and Greenery, of NATO and Netanyahu. But we remember.

My old friend Jonathan Ashworth has been a loyal and faithful servant of all four of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn. This afternoon, his announcement that he would make England a normal developed country and a normal part of the United Kingdom by abolishing prescription charges signalled his firm intention to move up from servant to master. A Durham man as Prime Minister may be a terrifying prospect, but the nation could do a lot worse than Jonathan. The nation is doing a lot worse than Jonathan.

Of course, there will be other candidates. The National Education Service proposed by Angela Rayner is, with the Build It In Britain programme, the National Investment Bank, the Regional Development Banks, and the Universal Basic Income, pretty much my dream policy. In Angela's inspiring words to the 2017 Labour Party Conference:

"The sum of human knowledge is the fruit of thousands of years of human labour. The discoveries of maths and science; the great works of literature and art; the arc of human and natural history itself; and so much more that there is to learn. All of it should be our common inheritance. Because knowledge belongs to the many, not the few [or, as I would put it, knowledge belongs to everyone]. This is our historic purpose as a movement. Not just to be a voice for the voiceless. But to give them a voice of their own."

If today's motion on commercial schools had been put before a Labour Party Conference in the Blair years, then it would have passed. It would never have made it into a General Election manifesto, but it is still not going to do that.

And these days, traditional conservatives would not mind too much if it came to pass. Those schools have long since priced them out in favour of a deracinated global elite, and the three most prominent politicians to have come out of those schools in the last 25 years have been Tony Blair, the David Cameron whom they despise, and the Boris Johnson on whom they are still reserving judgement.

Commercial schools have moved from merely being better at an examination system that was rubbish anyway, to openly following an academically inferior examination system of their own while frankly selling social connections as their premium product.

Therefore, the condition of a commercial school's continuing charitable status should be its having been adjudged good or better by the same means as a state school, using the same criteria as for a state school, with the report published, and with the value-added measure applied, thereby requiring that school to have demonstrated how it had improved pupils' abilities. 

And commercial schools do regularly provide left-wing figures with a platform that they are seldom or never afforded by the schools of the municipal Labour Right. Jeremy Corbyn no doubt turns down numerous invitations. George Galloway regularly accepts them. As would I.

While we are seeking to make the world better, then we still have to live in it as it is. It is not hypocritical to do so as best we can. The hypocrites are the highly activist, usually Conservative, Education Ministers who buy their own children out of the practical application and implications of their policies. Their hypocrisy is never, ever called out. Well, it would certainly be called out by me. 

The Left and the working class, and perhaps especially the rural working class, need to bypass both the municipal Labour Right and the Liberal Establishment both in education and in the media. The EU referendum result has confirmed that the workers, and not the liberal bourgeoisie, are now the key swing voters who deserve direct representation on local public bodies, on national public bodies, in the media, and at the intersection of the public and media sectors.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Saturday 21 September 2019

Losing The Plot

Jeremy Corbyn and Tom Watson were elected at the same time and by the same people.

It is greatly to be regretted that neither of them has made the effort to build what might have been. Although neither of them has been anything like as bad as his own shriller supporters.

The position of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party was created in questionable circumstances, and there have always been people who have wanted to abolish it.

Corbyn's shriller supporters have now joined their number. Thereby declaring that they have no hope of ever managing to win the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party.

In which case, Laura who?

Droning On In The Sand

At least and at last, someone has bombed the money wells of global Wahhabi terrorism, including in my country. Why should I care too much who it was?

And what if it were the Houthis? If the Houthis can take out five per cent of the world's oil export market with a single strike, then imagine what the Iranians really could do.

A week later, and a few more American troops are going to Saudi Arabia and the increasingly menacing UAE, to deter bombs that have already been dropped. 

The Iranians have to express their displeasure. The rules of the game are the rules of the game, and Persia has been playing for a very long time. But they know that they have nothing to worry about. 

While the Americans may not like the Iranians, the Americans know that no Iranian has ever crashed a plane into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, or had any hand in doing so.

America is no longer run by the Bushes, practically family to the House of Saud, or by the Clintons, bought and paid for by the Saudis, the Kuwaitis and the Emiratis.

Like George Bush of Operation Condor and of the Highway of Death, John "Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran" McCain was practically canonised for no better reason that that he had not been the much more peaceable Donald Trump.

But McCain never became President, and now he is dead. Trump did, and he is still alive.

The problem country is Britain, where Saudi Arabia, which directs and funds terrorism on our streets, owns most Labour and almost all Conservative MPs, as well as all of the Liberal Democrats, including several recent recruits.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. 

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. 

The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Don't Just Book It

Bailouts just make the bailed out come back for more.

From 1948 to 1972, Thomas Cook was in public ownership.

Think on.

Mail Order?

The Daily Mail is in a tizzy about Labour's plan to guarantee that you would be seen by a GP within 48 hours.

Ordinarily, though, this is the kind of thing for which that newspaper would campaign, for and on behalf of a readership that is overwhelming elderly, or female, or both.

Unless the General Election intervenes, then the Government, and not least the very ambitious Health Secretary, will at least purport to match this. 

What will the Daily Mail say then?

Raising Awareness

It is perfectly legal to take a day off school. The requirement is 90 per cent attendance. If you were to spend every Friday afternoon, or every other Friday, getting an education instead, then you would be entirely within the law.

I was politically active at the age of yesterday's licensed strikers. There is nothing wrong with that. But no allowances were made, nor should they have been. If you are a working-class boy, or even one who is just not quite as posh, then they still aren't. And that is why, on Left and Right, you are unlikely to think like Greta Thunberg. But it is also why you are practically certain to get none of her attention.

Moreover, boys are quite routinely placed on the autistic spectrum in order to diagnose and treat their political opinions and interests as an illness, not in order to elevate them to the status of sages. Of course, there are also strong class and ethnic elements here.

Both of Thunberg's parents have Wikipedia entries, as has her paternal grandfather. How dare someone from quite so privileged a background presume to demand that our people either go back to, or remain in, our shacks and our hovels? Apparently, she also has an eating disorder. That explains a lot, doesn't it? She can't understand why poor people want nicer food. She's rich, and she doesn't want any food.

The leaders of opposition to wars are the youth, and that is as it should be. They ought to be doing that, not this. If attention were paid to 16-year-olds other than the daughter of Malena Ernman and Svante Thunberg, then that would be the face of youth politics. I'd be on the marches with them, when I had the time and the energy.

I recently heard an ostensibly Corbyn-supporting youth, with that strange new accent of middle-class London, ask in all seriousness whether the miners had been defeated "for environmental reasons", as if the Government and the Police had been the Green Goodies. Of course, Jeremy Corbyn himself, never mind Piers Corbyn, could have set her right.

But what next? Maggie's milk-snatching as a pioneering strike against the wicked dairy industry? Don't laugh, it could happen. After all, although she began to blather on about environmentalism as a means of Socialist control once she had the dementia that also turned her into a born again Eurosceptic, Margaret Thatcher was very Green indeed as Prime Minister, shocking first the Royal Society and then the UN with her passion on the subject.

It has always been right-wing stuff. It is a Yes-No question, "Do you regret the defeat of the miners in 1985?" The tax-exiled proto-Thatcherites of pop music, who are now its grand old men, often thought that they were left-wing in their day. But they weren't. And neither is this.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Throne Out?

Whether an intervention by the Queen swayed anyone who might otherwise have voted for Scottish independence, who knows?

But the ill-feeling that it has created, thanks to David Cameron, is now very real indeed. And if the monarchy exists for no other purpose, then it exists to safeguard the Union.

If the continuation of the monarchy imperils the continuation of the monarchy, then how can the monarchy survive? After what must be this 93-year-old monarch's last days, it probably cannot.

This dynasty has a remarkable instinct for survival. It now needs it. Not for the first time. But possibly for the last.

Priority

Today is Saint Matthew's Day. Consider that that erstwhile tax-collector is the Patron Saint of Bankers.

Consider also that that strange and increasingly unfashionable thing, Biblical criticism, purports to read the Bible "as if it were any other ancient text", yet in fact subjects it to a series of methods that would be laughed out in any other literary or historical discipline. Those methods are carefully constructed to "prove" the presuppositions of that strange and increasingly unfashionable thing, liberal theology.

Thus, if two Biblical books are word for word alike, as Matthew, Mark and Luke certainly are in parts, then they must have been copied from each other, since there is no way that God could have inspired them all and, funnily enough, done so in such a way that they confirmed each other's accounts.

Hence the theory of Markan Priority, that Saint Mark's Gospel was the first to be written, and that Saint Matthew and Saint Luke copied out great chunks of it word for word. And hence the theory of Q, the compendium of the material found in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark; no copy of Q exists anywhere.

Jesus simply did not claim divinity for Himself, so that rules out John at a stroke. Miracles simply do not happen, a position not even compatible with agnosticism. Style simply does not develop (seriously), so Saint Paul cannot have written several of the Epistles beginning with the words, "From Paul". And so on, and on, and on. Academia is at last moving away from this sort of thing. When will the Church in practice, since of course She has never adopted it, and cannot do so, in principle?

Perhaps a gentle fillip from the wider culture might be in order? Although they differ in length, the different structures of the Gospels mean that they could each be dramatised in 12 episodes of one hour apiece, perhaps running from January to March, i.e., more or less from Christmas to Easter. The order ought to be as in the Bible – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John – exactly as if any other ancient text were the subject.

That might even provide an opportunity to do some taking apart of the ridiculous theories of Markan Priority, of the interpolation of Mark 16, of "the Gospel of Thomas" and other such Dan Brown drivel, and of the historical unreliability of Saint John's Gospel on the grounds that Jesus "never claimed to be divine", the "proof" of which is held to be the historical unreliability of Saint John's Gospel.

All of these pieces of nonsense continue to be peddled by half-formed schoolteachers, and by clergy too old to have been part of the traditionalist revival among Catholics or the Evangelical revival among Protestants. Markan Priority was disproved a very long time ago by Saint Augustine, whose Wikipedia pages in Portuguese and Slovene are significant source of traffic to this site, as is the page on U and non-U English. Make of those facts what you will.

Acts could also be dramatised in this way, and it has some great stories in it. But it looks as if they would do the Ramayana first, and stick to the text if they did. That is not treating the Bible as a work of world literature, which is what they would claim that it was, and which, among other things, it is.

Why not dramatise the Ramayana, exactly as it is? Why not dramatise the Odyssey, exactly as it is? And why not dramatise the Four Canonical Gospels and Acts, exactly as they are? Of what are the television companies afraid? Of what, in practice even though not in principle, would the Church be afraid?

Councillor Watch: Day 69

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 104

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.

Friday 20 September 2019

Councillor Watch: Day 68

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 103

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.

A Healthy Development

I am told that the Department of Health and Social Care intends to progress the Shotley Bridge scheme with an identified funding source, although I do not yet know who or what that is. The Pre-Consultation Business Case in expected by the end of 2019, to be followed by the assurance processes and then by the public consultation. 

Onwards to that, then. 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.

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.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. In the coming hung Parliament, I would not support any Government that did not guarantee at least the level of hospital provision in Consett in July 2019. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Definition Phobia

Like Christianity or Judaism, anyone may convert to Islam. Therefore, like Christianity or Judaism, Islam is not a "race". But of course we all know that it is used as a proxy for bigotry against brown people. To that extent, then, there is such a thing as Islamophobia, and it is a real and growing problem.

Beware, though, of the impending attempt to define it. We have been here before with the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism, subscription to which is now compulsory in all three political parties, yet the position underlying which has just been defeated at the polls in Israel.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Action 4 Life


“No action will be taken against today’s strikers,” says the City of New York. Similar things are being said explicitly or implicitly all over the world. These are licensed strikes. And I cannot stop laughing at the whole concept of licensed strikes.

We need an approach to climate change which protected and extended secure employment with civilised wages and working conditions, which encouraged economic development around the world, which upheld the right of the working classes and of non-white people to have children, which held down and as far as practicable reduced the fuel prices that always hit the poor hardest, and which refused to restrict travel opportunities or a full diet to the rich.

I challenge the practices of the meat, fish, egg and dairy industries from the perspective of those of us who have no objection in principle to them, and who wish to continue to consume and enjoy their products.

The problem with the world is not that it has people in it. Which people, exactly? We must celebrate the full compatibility between the highest view of human demographic, economic, intellectual and cultural expansion and development, and the most active concern for the conservation of the natural world and of the treasures bequeathed by such expansion and development in the past. That expansion and development must now include space exploration, fuelled by, and fuelling, fusion power.

I strongly support the exploitation of the vast reserves of coal in this country and in this county. That, and the extension of civil nuclear power, are the backbone of an all-of-the-above energy policy, and they are the means of delivering highly paid, highly skilled, high status, unionised jobs while securing independence from Arab oil, from Russian gas, and from coal that has been mined using child and slave labour. For example, wind turbines are largely made of steel, yet many people seem to be blissfully unaware of how steel is made.

From Venezuela, Donald Trump intends his dynasty to supply a dependent world with oil deep into the twenty-second century. And from North Korea, Trump intends his dynasty to supply a dependent world with the coal of the Kim dynasty deep into the twenty-second century. Yet we have our own coal, right here under our feet. Britain was the world leader in clean coal technology until the Miners’ Strike. Britain can and must be that world leader again.

It is a Yes-No question, “Do you regret the defeat of the miners in 1985?” The correct answer is, “Yes.” Horror stories about how coal was burned or mined in the Britain of the twentieth century have no relevance to the Britain of the twenty-first. At the same time, I am totally opposed both to open-casting and to fracking, which extract hardly anything while employing hardly anyone.

The all-women shortlist system, of which the present MP for North West Durham is a beneficiary, has done more than anything else to turn the Parliamentary Labour Party from 50 per cent Broad Left in 1994 to 85 per cent Hard Right today. The changes to the British economy since 1977 have turned into the ruling class the public sector middle-class women who dominate the PLP, while the wars waged since 1997 have barely affected them, having largely been waged for explicitly feminist reasons, albeit to no good effect for the women of Afghanistan, and to catastrophic effect for the women of Iraq and Libya.

A position of being anti-industrial at home but pro-war abroad is ridiculous in itself, and bespeaks a total lack of comprehension of how wars are fought. But those MPs are Thatcher’s Daughters, unable to understand the rage against deindustrialisation and against the harvesting of young men in endless, pointless wars, and probably unaware of a growing number of young men’s closely connected discovery for themselves of the various schools of heterodox economics, and of the traditional Great Books that, for ostensibly if questionably feminist reasons, have been excluded from school and university curricula.

It is possible to detect a connected failure to appreciate that life is the geological force that shapes the Earth, and that 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. Instead, 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. Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Thursday 19 September 2019

Councillor Watch: Day 67

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drug's Challenge: Day 102

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.

Like To Ovid's Flea

David Cameron continues to express his pride in Iain Duncan Smith's welfare "reforms", "reforms" that began under Yvette Cooper, and which in 2015 no Labour Leadership candidate other than Jeremy Corbyn could bring themselves to vote against, but which eventually led to the disgusted resignation of IDS himself, hundreds of thousands of deaths later.

In this, Cameron is the voice of most Labour, almost all Conservative, and all Liberal Democrat MPs. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. 

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Enfield's End

As Joan Ryan prepares to depart from Parliament, the Joint List should insist that Benny Gantz appoint an Arab as the Israeli Ambassador to London.

Then there would be no more million pounds bounties on the head of Jeremy Corbyn. Or million pound dowries to clear the debts of the Liberal Democrats if they took on a princess.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham.

The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

All Your Wounds From Craving Love Exist Because Of Heroic Deeds

It was either the Iranians or the Houthis, so it was Iran one way or another. And yet where is the American retaliation?

The House of Saud is desperate for a war with Iran, and equally desperate not to have to fight it. It had thought that its dad was bigger than anyone else's dad. But it turns out to have no dad. Much as we had always known.

The days when the United States was ruled, either by a family that was all but related to the House of the Saud, or by a power couple who openly stated that they would nuke Iran if so instructed by their Saudi, Kuwaiti and Emirati campaign donors, now seem much longer ago than they really were.

Through Jundallah and its various splinters, Iran is already one of the many victims of the terrorism that Saudi Arabia inspires, directs and funds. Clearly, it is the one that has finally had enough and, being best placed to do so, has bombed the money wells. And equally clearly, none of the others, including the United States, has the slightest sympathy for the Saudis, at least not so as to cause any of them to come to the Nightmare Kingdom's practical assistance.

Prince Mohammad should count himself lucky that only the Iranians' patience has snapped. His American, Russian, British, French, Chinese, Indian and even Pakistani victims have nuclear weapons, even if those obviously do have no deterrent value.

Meanwhile, most British politicians remain as deep as ever in the pockets of the House of Saud. Even Jeremy Corbyn has never brought back to the floor of the House of Commons the matter of the war against Yemen. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Perhaps A Little Too Much?

David Cameron has given vent to the 300-year-old upper-class disdain for the present Royal Family as an unfortunate political necessity of nouveux riches immigrants. Call it Spencerism. But he knew the rules. At the very least, he does now need to be removed from the Privy Council, which would be the kind of thing that would bother someone like him. Of course he must be. He has made public the details of a conversation with the Queen. Arguably, by so doing, he has already resigned from the Privy Council.

Ah, yes, the Privy Council. Unfolding events have exposed the fact that, far from being a kind of parliamentary republic with a bit of Royal decoration for the tourists, Britain is in fact an absolute monarchy the exercise of which has come to be vested in the Prime Minister, with Parliament as the pantomime aspect, such that it can only sit at all when and where the Prime Minister, pretending to be the Queen, says that it should meet.

This Prime Minister has already lost what he had specified was a confidence motion, such that he withdrew the whip from 21 MPs for voting against him on it. Yet he remains in office. By refusing to make a submission to the Supreme Court, on the blasé understanding all round that it he would be found in contempt when it was inevitably exposed as a pack of lies, then how is he not already in contempt of that court? And so on.

None of this has delivered stability, as is often claimed. There has been blood on our streets on numerous occasions, including in some quantities as recently as 1984 to 1985, when mounted Police (if some of them really were the Police) cracked the skulls of people who were seeking to defend exactly the energy independence the loss of which is now bemoaned by those who still toast the memory of that savagery.

But while the present arrangements do need to change, God spare us from a written Constitution. The time when we might most plausibly have acquired one was at the height of Victorian Liberalism. Imagine that one of Gladstone's Ministries had in fact created such a thing, embodying all of its own principles and prejudices. Then imagine that, 50 to 80 years later, the Attlee Government had had to contend with it.

Today, the Gina Millers of the world would no doubt like to constrain a future Government by such means. Most Labour and at least half of Conservative MPs would be supportive of that, as would the  Greens and whatever remained of Change UK, and as would the Liberal Democrats, who are on course to win 50 seats from the Conservatives.

Another hung Parliament is coming, therefore, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Wednesday 18 September 2019

Councillor Watch: Day 66

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 101

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.

All That Remains?

Neither the Greens nor whatever Change UK might be calling itself by then will be in the next Government, so they can whine all they like that the Liberal Democrats have gone too far.

The Lib Dems also stand far more chance of being in a governing Coalition than the Brexit Party, which, like the SNP, is untouchable by either Labour or the Conservatives, and which in any case is wildly unlikely to win any seats. Change who held them, yes. But not win them itself. 

The price of Lib Dem support would the revocation of Article 50. And both Conservative and, even these days, Labour politicians believe so profoundly that they were born to be in Government that they would pay that price.

Jo Swinson's biggest problem is in our own party. Yes, they want to revoke Article 50. But they were far more committed opponents of the Blair Government than the Conservatives ever were.

They have been fighting against the right-wing Labour municipal machines for a very long time. They have been fighting against the Tory rural mafias for ever, and ever, and ever; that was pretty much why the Liberal Party was founded.

And they are damned if they are giving the chance of parliamentary seats to single issue johnny-come-latelies against whom they have spent decades fighting what they themselves most emphatically see as the good fight.

Nobody minds seeing the town whore in church. But there needs to be caution before she is allowed to sing in the choir. And nobody wants to hear her preaching the sermon. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. 

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Unwelcome In The Hillsides

And so Mark Drakeford, whose business it would simply not have been in better days, demands that Labour campaign for Remain in Wales. Wales, which voted Leave.

Well, of course it did. It entered the EU, and as Tony Benn explained it always was the EU, as one of the industrial powerhouses of the world. Today, it is as poor as Hungary.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. 

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham, right here in another area that voted Leave because at best the EU had done nothing to prevent its degeneration from wealth and power to poverty and powerlessness.

The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.