What frightens Iain Duncan Smith, who was once so promising, is the realisation that once there were the Universal Basic Income, and bans on most sorts of eviction, and all of the rest of those measures, then there would be no getting rid of them. And as the Conservatives hit 52 per cent in the polls, then Boris Johnson now has it within his power to reduce the Labour Party to the remnant presence of its Irish and Israeli namesakes, simply by issuing a single press release with six points.
First, beginning on Thursday 6th May 2021, all English local elections would henceforth be held on the same day, every four years, with each of us voting for one candidate, and with the requisite number of councillors for each ward elected at the end. Secondly, recalling Disraeli’s doubling of the electorate, while parliamentary candidates would henceforth have to be British citizens in Great Britain, or British or Irish citizens in Northern Ireland, there would no longer be any nationality requirement to vote in parliamentary elections, nor any nationality requirement either to vote or to stand in local elections.
Thirdly, at each of the Conservative Party’s top 100 target seats in 2024, and wherever a Conservative MP was retiring, then the Conservative candidate would have to have lived there throughout the 15 years prior to the General Election, and would have to have an annual income not higher than £12,500. Fourthly, where more than one such person applied to be the candidate, then the constituency association’s shortlist of two would be put out to a binding, independently administered ballot of all parliamentary electors in the constituency, while that same system would also be used to chose future Leaders of the Conservative Party across the party’s top 100 target and its 100 most marginal seats.
Fifthly, the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme dispute would be settled on the mineworkers’ terms, while the County Durham Teaching Assistants’ dispute would be settled, by central government intervention, on the terms set by the County Durham Teaching Assistants’ Activists Committee, mentioning in passing that it was under this Government that coal mining had returned to County Durham, specifically to the North West Durham constituency.
And sixthly, unless they had said no within six hours of the announcement, then certain people would now be Visiting Fellows of the Downing Street Policy Unit, to publish through it with the approval both of its Director and of Dominic Cummings, not as an expression of government policy, but because what they were saying made a useful contribution to the debate. Each would receive an annual honorarium of £12,000, while remaining perfectly free to publish elsewhere in other capacities. They would include the 20 Founding Signatories to The Full Brexit. A further 20 names are also readily available.
Thirdly, at each of the Conservative Party’s top 100 target seats in 2024, and wherever a Conservative MP was retiring, then the Conservative candidate would have to have lived there throughout the 15 years prior to the General Election, and would have to have an annual income not higher than £12,500. Fourthly, where more than one such person applied to be the candidate, then the constituency association’s shortlist of two would be put out to a binding, independently administered ballot of all parliamentary electors in the constituency, while that same system would also be used to chose future Leaders of the Conservative Party across the party’s top 100 target and its 100 most marginal seats.
Fifthly, the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme dispute would be settled on the mineworkers’ terms, while the County Durham Teaching Assistants’ dispute would be settled, by central government intervention, on the terms set by the County Durham Teaching Assistants’ Activists Committee, mentioning in passing that it was under this Government that coal mining had returned to County Durham, specifically to the North West Durham constituency.
And sixthly, unless they had said no within six hours of the announcement, then certain people would now be Visiting Fellows of the Downing Street Policy Unit, to publish through it with the approval both of its Director and of Dominic Cummings, not as an expression of government policy, but because what they were saying made a useful contribution to the debate. Each would receive an annual honorarium of £12,000, while remaining perfectly free to publish elsewhere in other capacities. They would include the 20 Founding Signatories to The Full Brexit. A further 20 names are also readily available.
Who needs a party? We get to decide which of them should win. That gives us far more power, and we must be unapologetic about using it. In order to win a General Election, then either Labour or the Conservatives must uphold family and community values by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty. And either Labour or the Conservatives must look after the rural working class, and the industrial and former industrial communities that were either outside the metropolitan areas or peripheral to them.
It is obvious which party is currently passing those tests, both nationally and here at North West Durham. Strongly supported by Richard Holden MP, the Government has formally accepted Modern Monetary Theory, it has effectively reversed New Labour’s surrender of control over interest rates, it is looking to expand its existing programme of renationalisation, it is bringing the trade unions into government, and it is edging towards the introduction of the Universal Basic Income. In the absence of a candidate even closer to my views, then this veteran of the Postliberal Left will be voting for Richard Holden in 2024.
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