Wednesday 4 March 2020

Straight Talking

One in four pregnancies in the United Kingdom ended in abortion in 2018, when the Prime Minister was not Bernie Sanders, or indeed Jeremy Corbyn, for all the many faults of either.

In the United States, Donald Trump's successful nominations to the Supreme Court are supposed to have settled the matter of abortion regardless of the opinion of this or that President, so that the Court was now just waiting for a case to come before it. Or have I missed something?

Sanders is dangerously wrong on drug legalisation, but again it is difficult to see how that would make any difference. Such matters are not decided by the President, even if he is important in setting the tone. No, the main point is that Sanders is not now going to be the nominee.

And that is probably just as well, since he has accepted at least part of the Russian conspiracy rubbish that Trump has faced down, and since his Greenery poses a far greater threat to blue collar jobs than Trump's policies do, for all the otherwise considerable common ground between them both on foreign policy and on economic policy.

Trump may be bombing the Taliban a little, as literal parting shots, but he has been on the telephone to them, and it will all be over by the middle of next year. There would be none of that under Biden, just as there would be a return to the dark days of NAFTA and GATT.

There is talk of a third party bid, perhaps by Tulsi Gabbard. But if the realistic options were a straight choice between Biden and Trump, then it would have to be Trump. A second defeat by Trump is just what the liberal wing of the Democratic Party needs. It would have no way back from that.

Similarly, in a straight fight between Boris Johnson, with his huge investment in the Red Wall and with his hints at a British foreign policy independent even of the United States, and Keir Starmer, who is a neoliberal and a neoconservative from central casting, then it would have to be Johnson.

Like Trump, Johnson offers our people a hearing, should we have the guts and the gumption to take it up, that we could never expect from the liberal elite in any country. And even on race, Johnson's undeniably reprehensible off-colour remarks pale in comparison with the fact that Starmer used to be the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Those, however, need not be the only options. Ours is the 2020 Vision of a new political party, a new think tank, a new weekly newspaper, a new monthly cultural review, a new quarterly academic journal, and so much else besides. I will be standing for Parliament again here at North West Durham next time, so please give generously. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

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