Hostage Situation

If the ceasefire were lifted, as Keir Starmer has always advocated and as was demanded by Sunday's mercifully few marchers, a very high proportion of whom were downmarket media personalities such as Rachel Riley and Boris Johnson, then that would be only because Benjamin Netanyahu was being held hostage by coalition partners who, unlike Hamas, did not allow women to be candidates for public office, and who acted on their sense of religious obligation to burn down churches, again not something for which Hamas went in.

ISIS, which Israel supported in Syria as enthusiastically as Britain and the United States did but with far more practical assistance, is like al-Qaeda in despising Hamas, which fulsomely returns the compliment. Hamas is allied to Iran, it participates in elections, and it has not implemented Sharia in Gaza in anything like a form acceptable to those factions, if at all. There, it has stamped them out without mercy.

To ISIS or al-Qaeda, it is absolutely forbidden to fight alongside Hamas on those grounds, and it would be even if none of them applied, since Hamas, while it vaguely aspires to a global caliphate as in some sense any Sunni Muslim does, is fundamentally and ultimately a nationalist movement, really only actively seeking an Islamic State in Palestine, and then only its own understanding of one, the character of which may already be seen in Gaza. ISIS cannot, however, hold it against Hamas that it has been funded by Israel, although it is now permissible to point out that it has been.

While David Cameron and Andrew Mitchell understand this, so that no member of the Government attended the march to resume the genocide by people who could not get cast in panto this season, Labour does not have a clue, so that that event was addressed by a member of the Shadow Cabinet. In the way that this whole issue divides the politically from the performatively working-class, so it also divides proper toffs from jumped up oiks.

But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.

Better Together

Any rhapsodising of Henry Kissinger is a confession of a war crime yet undiscovered. If that. Tony Blair has made a predictable intervention. But Shane MacGowan was devastating enough, before the news came through of my Right Honourable Kinsman.

When Alistair Darling was Chancellor of the Exchequer, then my mother, who was related to him only by marriage, maintained that my eyebrows would stay black when my hair had turned white. We may not now have long to find out. His idea of public stakes in the banks has proved remarkably long-lasting, even if too little has been made of it. At yesterday's Prime Minister's Questions, Rishi Sunak was confronted by a Conservative MP, Sarah Dines, about branch closures in her constituency by a bank that was largely publicly owned. Quite. "Our goal is to make finance the servant, not the master, of the real economy," said Darling (I never met him). We are still waiting.

Saint Andrew's Day seems apt. Like George Kerevan, Darling was part of the spectacularly successful IMG entryist operation in the Edinburgh Labour Party of the early 1980s. But unlike Kerevan, although he is now in Alba so things could be worse, Darling resisted to the last the dissolution of the British Labour Movement and of its achievements, right up to today's victory on the part of the RMT, pointedly an unaffiliated trade union led by a member of no political party. Under me, Unite would be like that. And if strikes did not work, then no one would bother trying to tell you that they did not work, nor would anyone be trying to ban them. A ban that the Labour Party would not repeal, having banned its MPs from standing on picket lines.

But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Keir Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.

Going Dutch?

Do the Dutch bother with our Royal Family, considering that they have their own, which was also ours, whatever any Ladybird Guide may tell you, from 1689 to 1702? Our reigning House is no longer that of Windsor, either. It is something far more authentically blue-blooded.

At the other end of the Hull to Rotterdam ferry ride, the present King is another William of Orange, and he recalls yet a third of that name by reigning at the same time as Philip of Spain. There was ballyhoo about the Spanish translation of Prince Harry's book. But who read it?

And who is reading a Dutch translation of this Omid Scobie person's? Scobie's reliability may be deduced from his assertion that King Charles III invited Taylor Swift to perform at the Coronation, but she declined.

Joe Biden's sister, Valerie Biden Owens, has endorsed the former Meghan Markle's obvious ambition to become President of the United States, but it is little Lilibet, who was also born in the United States, who will be 55 in 2076. What a way to mark the Tricentenary, by electing a President whose first cousin was King George.

Still, while Piers Morgan's intervention has made it clear that, at least for now, the tabloid London where Scobie failed is having none of it, there is obviously a concerted campaign from Hollywood, which is more powerful than most of the world's states, to ensure that there never is a George VII, or even a William V.

Based on the nature of that campaign, the first Stadtholder of our United Provinces would have to be mixed-race. That will be an accurate enough reflection of the British population by the time of the King's death in, one expects, 15 to 20 years' time. But most mixed-race Britons will still be relatively young.

I, on the other hand, shall be in my early sixties, having been mixed-race since before it was fashionable. I stand by what I have written before, both about why, on balance, I would not want an elected Head of State, and about why I would be as qualified as anyone else for the position by the time that it became available. Start calling me Marshal of Lindsay, after those monarchist founding Presidents, Marshal de MacMahon and Marshal von Hindenburg.

And depend upon a better fate than befell either the Third Republic or the Weimar Republic, since unlike either de MacMahon or von Hindenburg, I am not minor nobility. As the founding Doge of the Most Serene Republic of Great Britain, I would inaugurate at least 11 centuries, to match those of the first Serenissima. Only then, at the earliest, would men they be, and must grieve when even the Shade of that which was once great was no more. Or whom would you have instead? President Scobie?

The Safeguarding Challenge: Day 143

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Board of the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency, currently Nazir Afzal, Amanda Ellingworth, Wesley Cuell, Bishop Paul Mason, Carol Lawrence, Jenny Holmes, Sister Frances Orchard CJ, and Sir David Behan.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Committee, currently Monsignor Andrew Faley, Gail McGregor, Paul Weatherstone, Father Christopher Hancock MHM, Father Jeff Dodds, Canon William Agley, and Catherine Dyer.

And that purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Team, currently Meriel Anderson, Ian Colling, Paul Brown, Lisa Short, Yvonne Brown, and Robert Appleby.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide. I should emphasise that there is absolutely no risk that I might ever give anyone the satisfaction of my suicide.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The CPS Challenge: Day 143

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of its organised persecution of the opponents and critics of Keir Starmer, which is its principal national priority.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from contesting the next General Election.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from seeking the position of General Secretary of Unite the Union.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a thinktank to strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a weekly magazine of news and comment, a monthly cultural review, a quarterly academic journal, and perhaps eventually also a fortnightly satirical magazine.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from taking journalistic, political or other paid work for fear of losing my entitlement to Legal Aid.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service out of the same racism that has caused it to refuse to prosecute the Police Officers in the case of Stephen Lawrence.

And I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to incite my politically motivated murder, a murder that the CPS has already decided would never lead to any prosecution.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Board, currently Max Hill KC, Monica Burch, Rebecca Lawrence, Mark Hammond, Simon Jeffreys, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan, and Kathryn Stone.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the CPS senior leadership, currently Dawn Brodrick, Steve Buckingham, Mark Gray, Sandra McKay, Gregor McGill, Grace Ononiwu, and Baljhit Ubey.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, currently Simon Jeffreys, Mark Hammond, Michael Dunn, and Deborah Harris.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Nominations, Leadership and Remuneration Committee, currently Max Hill KC, Rebecca Lawrence, and Monica Burch.

And each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the 279 members of staff of the CPS North East Area, by definition including, but not restricted to, Chief Crown Prosecutor Gail Gilchrist, and the Area Business Manager, Ian Brown.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Clergy Challenge: Day 846

I invite each and every bishop, priest and deacon of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if he thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me.

Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know. The current total is zero.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Representatives Challenge: Day 846

As already stated on the day after my release: "The instant that Labour lost control of Durham County Council, then I was granted an unsolicited tag for more than 10 weeks of future good behaviour. I invite each and every Member of Parliament for the area covered by Durham County Council, each and every member of Durham County Council, and each and every member of Lanchester Parish Council, to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know." The current total is zero.

Furthermore, I invite each and every other candidate for the parliamentary seat containing Lanchester to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. In this case, names most certainly will be published, including as part of my election literature. The current total is zero. If that remained the case when the next General Election was called, then my literature would state that each and all of my opponents, by name, did not think that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. At least in that event, then I challenge Oliver Kamm to contest this seat.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

Losing Our Marbles?

Although I was on decidedly different premises at the time, I was a 19-year-old barman in a workingmen's cub in Consett (Delves Lane, if you know) when a public schoolboy first mistook me for a master in a public school. That has since happened routinely, including very recently. But no public schoolboy has ever mistaken me for a public schoolboy. There will be no real life Ealing comedy in which I was accidently made Leader of the Labour Party.

So while I would probably have liked it, and I have made occasional attempts to plug the gap, I never had a Classical education, as is immediately obvious to anyone who did. Therefore, I struggle to understand the emotional importance of holding onto half of the Parthenon sculptures and a haphazard assortment of other pieces, at least if they would be perfectly well looked after by people to whom their cultural significance was indisputable. In these parts, we have had a similar situation for many years. Until the campaign began in earnest to bring home the Lindisfarne Gospels, then the British Library had been unaware of holding it, much less had it been on display.

Unlike the Lindisfarne Gospels, and while anyone must fear for anything that was in the care of George Osborne, it is not that I actively want the Elgin Marbles to move, even if, unlike the Secretary of State for Education, I can at least pronounce their name correctly. They really do not care what they put in charge of the state education system, do they? This may as well be a Labour Government.

But well within the next 20 years, this Kingdom will be six counties lighter, and no one cares. The people who are making a fuss about the retention of the Elgin Marbles, and many of whom will soon be employees of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, abusively want rid of Scotland either despite their family ties to it or because of them, and they assume the Principality of Wales to be as fictitious as the Principality of Battenberg, except that there is a town called Battenberg.

Of course, neither the Union Flag nor the coat of arms would change in practice. Yet it is worth pondering how, for a start, the red saltire and the harp might be replaced with representations of the Elgin Marbles. Likewise, to the people in whose country the rest of us merely live, it matters who owns the Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, but not who owns the utilities, the ports, the airports, the rail services, the communication networks, the steel production, or numerous other pieces of vital infrastructure. We are never going to understand.

To Deepen Your Humanity

Another long night after a long day, but I will be posting at length as soon as possible. Even Owen Jones has his uses, and he has pointed out that none of the prurient hysteria about rapes, beheaded babies, and what have you, is in the 7th October footage that people purporting to be journalists are allowed to see but not to tell anyone about. Why do you so badly want those things to be true? Believe nothing about that footage until Peter Oborne says so.

Notice that still no one will call Palestinian children "children", and that more of them have now been taken hostage from the West Bank, since they are not charged with anything but merely kept as future bargaining chips and tortured for sport, than have been released over the same period in return for hostages held in Gaza.

Still, as the Gaza ceasefire has been extended, so Keir Starmer has been completely humiliated along with those who marched with Boris "Let The Bodies Pile High" Johnson and Peter "Nine-Year-Olds Can Consent To Sex With Adults" Tatchell to demand that the genocide be resumed. No one from the Government turned up, but a member of the Shadow Cabinet addressed that ghoulish event. Labour is now the greater evil, worse than the Tories. We should no more want it to win the next General Election than most of its MPs wanted it to win the last two, or than any of its staff wanted it to win the last four.

But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.

By The Routes

Bus services have been cut by more than 80 per cent since 2008, a period during which all three parties have been in government. The previous Labour Leadership of Durham County Council had a hatred of buses that was downright psychotic, and precisely that tendency is back in control of the Labour Party nationally.

But Jamie Driscoll is coming, with his Total Transport Network. And when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Keir Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.

The Safeguarding Challenge: Day 142

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Board of the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency, currently Nazir Afzal, Amanda Ellingworth, Wesley Cuell, Bishop Paul Mason, Carol Lawrence, Jenny Holmes, Sister Frances Orchard CJ, and Sir David Behan.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Committee, currently Monsignor Andrew Faley, Gail McGregor, Paul Weatherstone, Father Christopher Hancock MHM, Father Jeff Dodds, Canon William Agley, and Catherine Dyer.

And that purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Team, currently Meriel Anderson, Ian Colling, Paul Brown, Lisa Short, Yvonne Brown, and Robert Appleby.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide. I should emphasise that there is absolutely no risk that I might ever give anyone the satisfaction of my suicide.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The CPS Challenge: Day 142

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of its organised persecution of the opponents and critics of Keir Starmer, which is its principal national priority.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from contesting the next General Election.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from seeking the position of General Secretary of Unite the Union.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a thinktank to strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a weekly magazine of news and comment, a monthly cultural review, a quarterly academic journal, and perhaps eventually also a fortnightly satirical magazine.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from taking journalistic, political or other paid work for fear of losing my entitlement to Legal Aid.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service out of the same racism that has caused it to refuse to prosecute the Police Officers in the case of Stephen Lawrence.

And I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to incite my politically motivated murder, a murder that the CPS has already decided would never lead to any prosecution.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Board, currently Max Hill KC, Monica Burch, Rebecca Lawrence, Mark Hammond, Simon Jeffreys, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan, and Kathryn Stone.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the CPS senior leadership, currently Dawn Brodrick, Steve Buckingham, Mark Gray, Sandra McKay, Gregor McGill, Grace Ononiwu, and Baljhit Ubey.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, currently Simon Jeffreys, Mark Hammond, Michael Dunn, and Deborah Harris.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Nominations, Leadership and Remuneration Committee, currently Max Hill KC, Rebecca Lawrence, and Monica Burch.

And each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the 279 members of staff of the CPS North East Area, by definition including, but not restricted to, Chief Crown Prosecutor Gail Gilchrist, and the Area Business Manager, Ian Brown.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Clergy Challenge: Day 845

I invite each and every bishop, priest and deacon of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if he thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me.

Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know. The current total is zero.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Representatives Challenge: Day 845

As already stated on the day after my release: "The instant that Labour lost control of Durham County Council, then I was granted an unsolicited tag for more than 10 weeks of future good behaviour. I invite each and every Member of Parliament for the area covered by Durham County Council, each and every member of Durham County Council, and each and every member of Lanchester Parish Council, to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know." The current total is zero.

Furthermore, I invite each and every other candidate for the parliamentary seat containing Lanchester to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. In this case, names most certainly will be published, including as part of my election literature. The current total is zero. If that remained the case when the next General Election was called, then my literature would state that each and all of my opponents, by name, did not think that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. At least in that event, then I challenge Oliver Kamm to contest this seat.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

Wreathgate Recalled

Solomon Hughes writes:

Big events in Britain are often accompanied by ritual denunciations of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn: when the Times editorial accused Keir Starmer of “vacillation” and “panic” over Labour’s Gaza policy, they had to preface the criticism with a swipe at Corbyn, under whom they claim Labour had “plumbed” into “squalid moral depths.”

This is a pretty common phenomenon: when the current, centrist-dominated political scene comes up with more austerity, hunger and war, the centrist pundits have to spit out a ceremonial denunciation of Corbyn before they start to worry about whether the system is really working.

Haunted by the fact that an alternative, socialist response to these crises was recently popular, they feel they must exorcise the ghost of Corbynism before admitting the system isn’t working.

But when it comes to Gaza, allied hopes for a solution rest heavily on the very people they denounced Corbyn for hanging out with.

Western plans for a way out of the Gaza war rely heavily on the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)-led Palestinian Authority (PA).

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas this month, calling for “Palestinian-led governance, and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority” as a mid-term solution to the conflict.

The PA has run the limited self-governance of West Bank territory since the Oslo Accords of the mid-1990s. It is dominated by the PLO and the Fatah party.

Since 2007 Gaza has been run by the newer Islamist party Hamas: both the PLO and Hamas fought their way into politics over the decades through a mix of armed actions, from terrorism to mass uprisings.

While Israel wants to wipe out Hamas for their bloody massacre which sparked the current war, Blinken’s argument is that a long-term deal must be negotiated with a Palestinian partner to settle the dispute, and that partner is the PA.

Labour MP David Lammy echoed Blinken, arguing: “The Palestinian Authority plays an essential role in the West Bank, is an important partner to Britain and is essential to any long-term negotiations towards a political settlement and a two-state solution.”

Recent Israeli governments, including Netanyahu’s, have not encouraged the PA over Hamas: instead, they squeezed the PA with settlements and other pressures while allowing Hamas to grow in a “divide and rule” strategy that turned out to be playing with fire.

The PLO-led PA might be the flavour of the month now, but the press decided they were just evil “terrorists” when they wanted to have a pop at Corbyn.

From 2018 onwards, Corbyn was repeatedly accused of backing “terrorists” by the press for joining Tory and Lib Dem parliamentarians on a visit to the PLO HQ in Tunis in 2014.

Corbyn laid a wreath for PLO members who were killed in widely condemned Israeli bombings and assassinations. Bizarrely this was interpreted as Corbyn supporting the killers of the “Munich massacre” — when the Palestinian militant Black September group kidnapped and murdered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics.

This story ran and ran in the press, even though it made no sense at all. The PLO does not commemorate the Munich attack, so the idea that Corbyn, secretly, decided to go against his host’s wishes and honour the Black September group while in Tunis is nonsense, and there is no evidence for it.

Both the PLO and Black September said that the two organisations were separate. The actual Black September members who carried out the Munich attack are buried in Libya, not Tunisia.

The outlandish claims that Corbyn was secretly honouring the Munich massacre rested on the presence of two PLO graves in Tunisia — those of Salah Khalaf and Atef Bseiso — who the Israelis claim were “behind” or “organised” Black September.

But Khalaf and Bseiso denied these charges. Khalaf, also known as Abu Iyad, wrote an autobiography. The introduction plainly states “Abu Iyad vehemently denies that he was ever chief of Black September.” Iyad and Khalaf were assassinated by a more violent breakaway from the PLO who thought he was too much of a compromiser.

Bseiso was the PLO’s liaison with Western intelligence agencies — the PLO guy who negotiated with the CIA, so a key figure in US attempts to work with the PLO. He was assassinated in Paris in 1992, most likely by agents from the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, who wanted to prevent the PLO from building good relations with the US and the West in general.

Israel’s claims that Bseiso was also “behind” Black September can be seen as an attempt to justify their agents assassinating PLO people in France.

The main point of the graveyard ceremony in Tunis was for Corbyn and other politicians to lay a wreath for PLO members who were killed when Israel bombed the PLO HQ in Tunis in Operation Wooden Leg in 1985.

Up to 71 PLO members-in-exile were killed in the Israeli air raid on Tunisia, which was very widely condemned: even US Republican president Ronald Reagan said the attack “cannot be condoned.” 

Some claim that the PLO were behind Black September and Munich, and the Khalaf and Bseiso’s denials were just a cover story — but really that’s not relevant; the point is that the PLO does not commemorate Black September, so the idea that they or Corbyn secretly held a pro-Munich massacre event makes no sense, though this did not stop the papers endlessly reporting this is what had happened.

Right now, all the Western powers believe a long-term settlement will involve Israel doing a deal with the PLO for a two-state solution. Those same powers are worried that Netanyahu won’t do this and will instead destabilise the West Bank as well by backing illegal, violent settlers there.

But the “wreathgate” attack on Corbyn meant not only spreading a tall story about Black September, but it also meant supporting Netanyahu, who was quoted as a reliable source in the “wreathgate” story, and overlooking or whitewashing the kind of reckless Israeli acts — like the 1985 Tunis bombing or the 1992 Paris assassination — that stand in the way of any kind of settlement like a two-state solution.

Cameron Has Seized The Gaza File

Of the 7th October footage that this or that hack claims to have seen, believe in its existence, its mere existence, only when Peter Oborne has seen it. He and Imran Mulla write:

On 6 November 1956, after Britain and France launched a military action in collusion with Israel to occupy the Suez Canal, the Spectator published an editorial denouncing it as an ill-considered “act of aggression”. It was a bold move from Britain’s iconic Tory magazine, one that would age well, on the part of then-editor and proprietor Lord Ian Gilmour.

Gilmour went on to serve briefly as defence secretary under Edward Heath’s Conservative government, and then for two years as Margaret Thatcher’s lord privy seal - until she sacked him in 1981. During that time, and throughout his life, Gilmour belonged to the almost extinct tradition of Tory Arabism and was a staunch and consistent supporter of the Palestinians.

In 1961, the Spectator published Erskine Childers’ article “The Other Exodus”, which shattered the official Israeli narrative about the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948. Childers challenged the (now thoroughly debunked) notion that the Palestinians were ordered to leave by Arab leaders.

In 1982, Gilmour lamented Israel’s “short-sighted preference for continued occupation and annexation of the disputed territories to withdrawal and peace”. He condemned the American press’s record of portraying Palestinians “as terrorists and primitives, always seeking to persecute the Israelis and unreasonably objecting to the Zionist takeover of their territory”.

Then, in 2001, having visited Gaza, he wrote in the Guardian that a “ruthless colonial war is being waged throughout the Gaza Strip and the West Bank”, accusing Israel of imposing “collective punishments” on the Palestinians.

He also disdained what he saw as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s hypocrisy in denouncing Palestinian “terrorism” - “forgetting, no doubt, that his own record of terrorism and violence is, as the police used to say, as long as your arm”.

While Gilmour condemned Palestinian violence against civilians in Israel, he wrote that many Israelis “recognise that most (though not all) Palestinian violence in the [occupied] territories is not ‘terrorism’ but justified resistance to armed occupation”. Gilmour warned that when, “as the Israelis have done, you make life not worth living for thousands of Palestinians, there will be no shortage of suicide bombers”.

Inflammatory attacks

Today it is inconceivable that any mainstream politician, let alone a Tory, could employ this kind of analysis. Support for the Palestinian cause is framed either as a purely left-wing anti-western obsession or - when it comes to British Muslims - as a failure of integration and multiculturalism.

Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak allowed his home secretary, Suella Braverman, to make a series of inflammatory attacks on pro-Palestine protesters - before eventually sacking her over an article accusing the police of bias. With encouragement from Downing Street, Braverman suggested that displaying the Palestinian flag could in itself be an offence, and smeared hundreds of thousands of people protesting for Palestine as a “hate march”.

Yet there has been a long line of Conservative politicians and writers who have been sympathetic to Palestine. Neglect of this tradition impoverishes our current public discourse. It introduces a damaging partisanship to the Israel-Palestine issue: if you’re right-wing you have to be pro-Israel, while leftists have to be pro-Palestinian. It allows commentators to cast support for Palestinians as un-British and in opposition to western values. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Certainly, there has always been a strong tradition of Tory support for Israel. Winston Churchill is a prime example of this. During his sole visit to Palestine in 1921, he announced: “The cause of Zionism is one which carries with it much that is good for the whole world, and not only for the Jewish people; it will bring prosperity and advancement for the Arab population.”

But in the interwar years, many Conservatives advocated for the Palestinians. In some cases, this was a symptom of antisemitism - Lord Sydenham in the 1920s, for example, saw Zionism as a world Jewish conspiracy linked to communism. But certainly not in all cases.

Edwin Montagu, for example, was the only Jewish member of the cabinet when the Balfour Declaration was passed - and he was firmly opposed to it, fearing it would mean that “Mahommedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners, just in the same way as Jews will hereafter be treated as foreigners in every country but Palestine”.

Pro-Palestinian sentiment was strengthened in the late 1940s in the face of violence by militant Zionist groups, labelled by the British government as terrorists. The Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organisation), whose commander Menachem Begin would ultimately chair the Likud party that Netanyahu now leads, bombed the British Officers Club in Haifa, killing 30. They also infamously blew up the British administrative headquarters in Jerusalem’s King David Hotel in July 1946, killing 91 people - including 28 Britons. 

‘Balanced policy’

In the second half of the 20th century, Conservative governments aimed to be even-handed on the Middle East - unthinkable today. During the Yom Kippur War of 1973 - the most serious attack on Israel since its creation - Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath halted weapons supplies both to Israel and its Arab opponents, and refused to allow US planes supplying Israel with weapons to use Britain’s military bases.

Margaret Thatcher was more supportive of Israel, but her backing was never unequivocal. “You cannot be selective in your defence of law,” Thatcher warned the Israeli government. “You cannot say, ‘I like that law, I will uphold that one, I will not uphold the other’."

In 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon, Thatcher told US President Ronald Reagan that a “balanced policy” was best and that “unlimited support for Israel can only lead to growing polarisation and despair in the Arab world”. Britain imposed an arms embargo on Israel that lasted until 1994 - a far cry from Sunak declaring Britain’s “unequivocal” support for Israel's bombardment of Gaza.

Thatcher denounced the 1982 massacres committed by Christian Phalangists with the Israeli army’s complicity in Lebanon as “pure barbarism”. It’s impossible to imagine Sunak describing Israeli war crimes today in such strong words - or for that matter in any words at all.

Tory MPs founded the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, which aimed to promote Palestinian interests and survives to this day. One of its founders was the former Tory minister Anthony Nutting, who had resigned from government during the Suez crisis.

His views about Palestine were informed by his close study of British policy in the inter-war period, which he ruthlessly critiqued - accusing ministers at the time of a “total and deliberate disregard for the rights and interests of the Arabs”. Israel barred Nutting from visiting the occupied West Bank in 1969, alleging that he told students in Beirut it was up to guerrilla fighters to find a solution to the Palestinian predicament.

Conservative Friends of Israel

The strength and prominence of these Tory pro-Palestinian voices influenced Conservative governments. Under Thatcher, the UK signed the Venice Declaration - in which nine European countries formalised their concern about Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories (contrast this to Boris Johnson’s government voting against allowing the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel for alleged war crimes).

Thatcher also oversaw the founding of the Conservative Middle East Council (CMEC) in 1980, with Dennis Walters as its chairman.

CMEC backed the Palestinian cause, and it still exists today - but now with a heavily reduced focus on Palestine and strong ties to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain.

This change came alongside the rising influence of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) - which boasts 80 percent of Tory MPs as members and was described a quarter of a century ago by the historian and Conservative MP Robert Rhodes James as “the largest organisation in western Europe dedicated to the cause of the people of Israel”.

If anything, its influence has grown since Rhodes James wrote those words. The influence of the CFI is a significant factor in the near total marginalisation of Tory support for Palestine in recent years. So far as we can determine, the CFI has never once criticised any action by any Israeli government.

Its president Lord Polak recently told fellow peers of his concern about Britain’s refusal to engage with Israel’s notoriously racist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, explaining: “We work with all elected Israeli politicians, and we must be very careful not to go down a route of suggesting that our support for Israel is somehow conditional on any individual politician.”

Tory Arabism

Britain’s new foreign secretary, former prime minister David Cameron, is an important case study in the demise of Tory Arabism. As a young politician, he was influenced by Tory supporters of Palestine, especially Douglas Hurd, whose Witney constituency he inherited, and former party chairman Chris Patten.

As leader of the opposition, Cameron allowed his shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, to strongly criticise Israel’s war in Lebanon in 2006. “I think we can say that elements of the Israeli response are disproportionate,” Hague told MPs in the House of Commons, going on to cite “attacks on Lebanese army units, the loss of civilian life and essential infrastructure, and such enormous damage to the capacity of the Lebanese government”.

In the wake of that remark, the Conservative Friends of Israel secured a meeting with Cameron in which the Tory leader gave what was understood as an undertaking not to use the word “disproportionate” again.

Throughout his time as Tory leader and British prime minister, Cameron was as good as his word. He never once used the word in connection with any Israeli conflict. His government went on to be assertively supportive of Israel, leading the country’s newspaper Haaretz to ask whether he was the “most pro-Israel British PM ever”.

Yet, Cameron has reversed policy towards Israel and Palestine with stunning speed since Sunak appointed him foreign secretary two weeks ago. During a recent visit to the occupied West Bank, Cameron said of the current war in Gaza: “There won't be long-term safety and security and stability for Israel, unless there is long-term safety, security and stability for the Palestinian people.”

In meetings with Israeli government ministers, Cameron added: “I stressed over and over again that they must abide by international humanitarian law, that the number of casualties are too high and they have to have that at the top of their minds.” Cameron also condemned the violent attacks by illegal Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank since 7 October.

Privately, we have been told that Cameron warns of the deep damage being done to Britain’s international reputation, especially with Arab governments, by the blank cheque handed to Netanyahu on Sunak’s visit to Israel last month.

Most important of all, Cameron has allowed his junior minister, Andrew Mitchell, to reverse British policy towards the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Israel. This is a concrete change that has sent a shiver down the spine of Israel’s senior political echelon.

As prime minister in April 2021, Boris Johnson had written to the Conservative Friends of Israel: “We do not accept that the ICC have jurisdiction given Israel is not a signatory to the Rome statute, and Palestine is not a sovereign state.” Johnson also stated that an ICC enquiry into war crimes was a partial and prejudicial attack on a friend and ally of the UK.

Middle East Eye understands that the sudden reversal of the Johnson doctrine has given rise to behind-the-scenes protests from Britain’s pro-Israel lobby.

To sum up: in the space of two short weeks, Cameron has seized control of the Gaza file and renounced Sunak’s policy of “unequivocal” support for Netanyahu’s Israel. James Cleverly, Cameron’s predecessor as foreign secretary, was inexperienced, timid, out of his depth and reluctant to upset Downing Street or offend Israel.

Cameron, by contrast, has mastered his brief and shows every sign of being his own man. Cameron’s apparent rediscovery of the long-lost Tory Arabist tradition looks like yet another humiliation for hapless Sunak. But it also spells danger for Labour leader Keir Starmer.

Cameron has outflanked the Labour leader and made him look and sound dangerously like Netanyahu’s pointman in Westminster.

Oliver Dowden Is A Number Two

Say what you like about Geoffrey Howe, Michael Heseltine, John Prescott or Nick Clegg, but Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair or David Cameron would never have offered him to the Greeks, to go and sit in the Parthenon and be gawped at by the tourists, in lieu of the Elgin Marbles. Than Oliver Dowden, we need a much better class of Deputy Prime Minister next year.

For when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Keir Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.

I Dreamt I Dwelt In Marble Halls?

Telling the Greeks that they could not have the Elgin Marbles back is one thing, Rishi Sunak. But offering them Oliver Dowden instead? It is a wonder that they have not declared war. Thank goodness for our half-Greek King.

People who have been in touch to ask whether I was all right, don't worry, there will be a big post in the next 24 hours. But I need to talk to a lot of people. For now, though, let us bask in the happy fact that the continuation of the ceasefire is a total humiliation of Keir Starmer and of a march that was too trashy even for him. Instead, participants had to make do with an old Hilary Armstrong staffer, which meant the right-wing Labour machine purely as an end in itself, and which even next to Rachel Riley was a different order of vulgarity.

Imagine a Government in which a Cabinet Minister had addressed a demonstration to demand that a ceasefire be discontinued and a genocide resumed. Imagine a Prime Minister who had opposed that ceasefire, and the consequent release of child hostages on both sides (although see the coming post), even after Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to it. Andrew Mitchell's remarks in the House of Commons yesterday, about so-called safe zones in Southern Gaza, would have lost him the Labour whip as his punishment for being a grownup.

But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.

The Safeguarding Challenge: Day 141

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Board of the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency, currently Nazir Afzal, Amanda Ellingworth, Wesley Cuell, Bishop Paul Mason, Carol Lawrence, Jenny Holmes, Sister Frances Orchard CJ, and Sir David Behan.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Committee, currently Monsignor Andrew Faley, Gail McGregor, Paul Weatherstone, Father Christopher Hancock MHM, Father Jeff Dodds, Canon William Agley, and Catherine Dyer.

And that purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Team, currently Meriel Anderson, Ian Colling, Paul Brown, Lisa Short, Yvonne Brown, and Robert Appleby.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide. I should emphasise that there is absolutely no risk that I might ever give anyone the satisfaction of my suicide.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The CPS Challenge: Day 141

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of its organised persecution of the opponents and critics of Keir Starmer, which is its principal national priority.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from contesting the next General Election.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from seeking the position of General Secretary of Unite the Union.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a thinktank to strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a weekly magazine of news and comment, a monthly cultural review, a quarterly academic journal, and perhaps eventually also a fortnightly satirical magazine.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from taking journalistic, political or other paid work for fear of losing my entitlement to Legal Aid.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service out of the same racism that has caused it to refuse to prosecute the Police Officers in the case of Stephen Lawrence.

And I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to incite my politically motivated murder, a murder that the CPS has already decided would never lead to any prosecution.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Board, currently Max Hill KC, Monica Burch, Rebecca Lawrence, Mark Hammond, Simon Jeffreys, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan, and Kathryn Stone.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the CPS senior leadership, currently Dawn Brodrick, Steve Buckingham, Mark Gray, Sandra McKay, Gregor McGill, Grace Ononiwu, and Baljhit Ubey.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, currently Simon Jeffreys, Mark Hammond, Michael Dunn, and Deborah Harris.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Nominations, Leadership and Remuneration Committee, currently Max Hill KC, Rebecca Lawrence, and Monica Burch.

And each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the 279 members of staff of the CPS North East Area, by definition including, but not restricted to, Chief Crown Prosecutor Gail Gilchrist, and the Area Business Manager, Ian Brown.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Clergy Challenge: Day 844

I invite each and every bishop, priest and deacon of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if he thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me.

Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know. The current total is zero.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Representatives Challenge: Day 844

As already stated on the day after my release: "The instant that Labour lost control of Durham County Council, then I was granted an unsolicited tag for more than 10 weeks of future good behaviour. I invite each and every Member of Parliament for the area covered by Durham County Council, each and every member of Durham County Council, and each and every member of Lanchester Parish Council, to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know." The current total is zero.

Furthermore, I invite each and every other candidate for the parliamentary seat containing Lanchester to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. In this case, names most certainly will be published, including as part of my election literature. The current total is zero. If that remained the case when the next General Election was called, then my literature would state that each and all of my opponents, by name, did not think that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. At least in that event, then I challenge Oliver Kamm to contest this seat.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

23 Weeks On

Nominations have been closed for 23 weeks, so when is the election?

If you know, you know.

To Start With The Easy Targets

Peter Hitchens writes:

If defending free speech doesn’t get you into trouble, then you are not in fact defending free speech. The only speech worth defending is unpopular and very often it comes out of the mouths of people nobody likes. One such instance is that of the unlovable former civil servant Graham Phillips, sanctioned by Liz Truss’s Foreign Office in July 2022 for supposedly undermining the sovereignty of Ukraine. The official citation was that he had been sanctioned because he is “a video blogger who has produced and published media content that supports and promotes actions and policies which destabilise Ukraine and undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty, or independence of Ukraine”. I reported this at the time.

Mr. Phillips, a British citizen, is an obscure and far-from-unbiased video blogger, who has put the Russian side over the Ukraine war, and has been accused of a number of unpleasant actions, as I reported in July 2022. You may be sure I am aware of them, so there is no need to alert me to them again. And yet I am still on his side against the sanctions. So, interestingly, is that fine journalist Owen Matthews of the Spectator, who disagrees totally with me about the Ukraine-Russia war, and disagrees even more with Graham Phillips, but says:

The hunt for Putin cronies has widened from Kremlin–connected Russian oligarchs to include distrust and suspicion of pretty much all Russians – and at least one Briton… Graham Phillips, a former British civil servant who has lived in Russian–occupied Donbas for some years and who has become notorious for his video blogs reporting the war from the Russian point of view, including from the front lines. In July last year, the Foreign Office ruled that Phillips should be sanctioned…

I find Phillips’s pro-Kremlin views obnoxious and his reports blatantly one-sided. But being pro-Russian is not a crime in British law. We are not at war with Russia, nor is the Russian state a designated terrorist organisation. In a democracy, people should be free to be wrong. As the barrister Joshua Hitchens argued in a written submission to the court: “The power the [Foreign Secretary] claims to possess is expansive and unprecedented in modern British political and legal history.”

The crucial point in Phillips’s case against the British Government is the question of the fundamental democratic values which we claim to be defending – and for which Ukrainians are fighting and dying. Collective punishment is profoundly alien to our legal culture, as is punishing people simply on the basis of their views, nationality or ethnicity. At a time when praising and loudly demonstrating for an actual terrorist organisation – Hamas – takes place on the streets of London with apparent impunity, how does the Government justify punishing people for simply being Russian or, in Phillips’s case, for supporting Russia?

Mr. Phillips is also, very notably, the only British citizen (that is, without any form of dual nationality) ever to be sanctioned by His Majesty’s Government.

Some may have seen my report of the Graham Phillips case when it was before the High Court in the Mail on Sunday, or when it was reported in in the Independent.

Please note that the enterprising and rather brave young barrister Joshua Hitchens, who has taken on the case alone and without payment, is no relation of mine. It is an amusing coincidence that, alone among British barristers, he has felt that Mr. Phillips’s case is just and needs to be fought. Well, Hitchens is a Cornish name and some may be reminded of the ‘Song of the Western Men’ and its warning to the despotic King James II:

A good sword and a trusty hand!

A merry heart and true!

King James’s men shall understand

What Cornish lads can do!

I do not know when Mr. Justice Swift, who heard the case over two days at the High Court on November 15th and 16th, will publish his ruling. I was in court for almost every fascinating and important minute and it reminded me of the saying of the Greek poet Archilocus (borrowed famously by Isaiah Berlin) that “a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing”. I thought that my namesake, Joshua Hitchens, had one big point. Does the Government have the power to punish Mr Phillips without trial? And if it does have that power, is that lawful under the various charters of rights which govern us? His Government-backed opponent, Maya Lester KC (who was supported in court by three other robed and wigged barristers and a small entourage of other helpers), had several small points – about Mr. Phillips’s past activities, his sympathies, and whether he could be regarded in the same light as an actual propagandist for the Putin state, even though (as Joshua Hitchens pointed out) it is probable that nobody of any importance in Moscow has ever even heard of him. Joshua Hitchens also pointed out, as so many in this country seem to forget, that Britain is not at war with Russia and maintains an embassy in Moscow. If we were at war with Russia, as so many of Mr. Phillips’s critics seem to think we are, then the case would obviously be entirely different.

My view of it from the start has been that I too could be accused by some immature Minister of producing “media content that supports and promotes actions and policies which destabilise Ukraine and undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty, or independence of Ukraine”. And not just Ukraine. I have been quite disobliging about another of our allies, Saudi Arabia, and even about the USA. Of course, if governments want to punish people who get in the way of their foreign policy objectives, they are going to start with the easy targets. But it does not mean that they will stop there.

The Safeguarding Challenge: Day 140

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Board of the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency, currently Nazir Afzal, Amanda Ellingworth, Wesley Cuell, Bishop Paul Mason, Carol Lawrence, Jenny Holmes, Sister Frances Orchard CJ, and Sir David Behan.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Committee, currently Monsignor Andrew Faley, Gail McGregor, Paul Weatherstone, Father Christopher Hancock MHM, Father Jeff Dodds, Canon William Agley, and Catherine Dyer.

And that purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Team, currently Meriel Anderson, Ian Colling, Paul Brown, Lisa Short, Yvonne Brown, and Robert Appleby.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide. I should emphasise that there is absolutely no risk that I might ever give anyone the satisfaction of my suicide.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The CPS Challenge: Day 140

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of its organised persecution of the opponents and critics of Keir Starmer, which is its principal national priority.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from contesting the next General Election.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from seeking the position of General Secretary of Unite the Union.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a thinktank to strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a weekly magazine of news and comment, a monthly cultural review, a quarterly academic journal, and perhaps eventually also a fortnightly satirical magazine.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from taking journalistic, political or other paid work for fear of losing my entitlement to Legal Aid.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service out of the same racism that has caused it to refuse to prosecute the Police Officers in the case of Stephen Lawrence.

And I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to incite my politically motivated murder, a murder that the CPS has already decided would never lead to any prosecution.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Board, currently Max Hill KC, Monica Burch, Rebecca Lawrence, Mark Hammond, Simon Jeffreys, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan, and Kathryn Stone.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the CPS senior leadership, currently Dawn Brodrick, Steve Buckingham, Mark Gray, Sandra McKay, Gregor McGill, Grace Ononiwu, and Baljhit Ubey.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, currently Simon Jeffreys, Mark Hammond, Michael Dunn, and Deborah Harris.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Nominations, Leadership and Remuneration Committee, currently Max Hill KC, Rebecca Lawrence, and Monica Burch.

And each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the 279 members of staff of the CPS North East Area, by definition including, but not restricted to, Chief Crown Prosecutor Gail Gilchrist, and the Area Business Manager, Ian Brown.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Clergy Challenge: Day 843

I invite each and every bishop, priest and deacon of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if he thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me.

Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know. The current total is zero.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Representatives Challenge: Day 843

As already stated on the day after my release: "The instant that Labour lost control of Durham County Council, then I was granted an unsolicited tag for more than 10 weeks of future good behaviour. I invite each and every Member of Parliament for the area covered by Durham County Council, each and every member of Durham County Council, and each and every member of Lanchester Parish Council, to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know." The current total is zero.

Furthermore, I invite each and every other candidate for the parliamentary seat containing Lanchester to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. In this case, names most certainly will be published, including as part of my election literature. The current total is zero. If that remained the case when the next General Election was called, then my literature would state that each and all of my opponents, by name, did not think that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. At least in that event, then I challenge Oliver Kamm to contest this seat.

This post will appear daily until further notice.