All The Fun On The Fringe

It gladdens my trade unionist heart. There is an old trick of saying that something has been cut if spending on it has in fact been increased, but by less than the relevant union had wanted. That gap is called the cut. Likewise, the Conservatives are not proposing to cut taxes. They are only pretending that they would not put them up by as much as the present figures would suggest. If they got away with calling that a cut, then the game would have been changed beyond all recognition.

Being expensive is not the same as being uncosted. Jeremy Corbyn's General Election manifestos were fully costed. Keir Starmer is a liar, although it is interesting that this, and not the old scam that has just failed against the Green Party, is now the line for attacking Corbyn and thus, well, more or less anything or anyone, even Rishi Sunak.

Similarly dishonestly, those seat-by-seat predictions are basing Corbyn's result at Islington North on that of his Independent opponent in 2019, are basing Lee Anderson's result at Ashfield on that of his Brexit Party opponent in 2019, are basing Nigel Farage's result at Clacton on heaven knows what, and are basing George Galloway's result at Rochdale on a 2019 result before the Workers Party existed.

Speaking of the Workers Party, Oliver Kamm has been in touch to gloat that after my nomination papers had gone in, he had colluded with it to field a candidate at North Durham, making Lanchester the only ward of the former North West Durham constituency to be so blessed. Long noted for his friendly Twitter banter with Ben Sellers, so that there are dots to be joined, Kamm says this now that I have withdrawn.

I never should have done. That was a valid nomination, accepted as such, and having seen an interview with the Workers Party candidate, he turned out to have lived only five years within anything more than the ceremonial boundaries of County Durham (if that, since he did not specify on which part of Teesside he had audibly spent most of his life), he could not name the prominent councillor for the town in which he now lived and who was Luke Akehurst's agent, and he is obsessed with Akehurst, whereas my candidacy was unconnected to anyone else's.

It is not going to be good news from the doctor later this week, but I should have held out against this even to the death. The disappointed, and justly angry, people who have made contact to say that they would now be unable to vote at all are already well into triple figures. Why should I vote, either? Any possible outcome of this General Election would make the case for each of my ongoing projects such that I am indifferent to that outcome itself, which could only be to my benefit no matter what it was. And I sure as hell would not vote for Kamm.