Wednesday 6 November 2024

A Peaceful Transfer of Power

And just like that, Germany's most pro-war government since, well, we all know what, has collapsed. The only solution that has ever been possible in Ukraine is coming down the line. I am not pleased that Donald Trump has won. But I am ecstatic that Kamala Harris has lost. If she believed what she had been saying about him, then she would not wish to "engage in a peaceful transfer of power". On the contrary, he would be a domestic enemy of the Constitution within the terms of her oath of office as Vice President. Yet there is no such suggestion.

Nor is there any mention this time of foreign enemies, not even by the likes of Dick Cheney and his daughter, the presumptive Democratic nominee in 2028. Cheney left office with an approval rating of 13 per cent, but it has taken 16 years to defeat him at the ballot box. The shock has already been felt in Berlin, and it will not stop there. There has been some crowing that NATO and EU interference had beaten Russian interference in Moldova, but that already looks like a last gasp.

If the Americans are no longer going to be backing the no longer elected Volodymyr Zelensky, a change of direction that has already effected regime change in Europe's most populous country and largest economy, then why should Britain continue to send him three billion pounds per year "for as long as it takes"? For as long as what takes? We need that money for our bus-catching workers, for our benefit-capped children, for our freezing pensioners, and for our farmers.

The Conservatives have long not known what to do about farmers. On the economic principles that they have convinced themselves were fundamental to their party, Britain would have no agriculture. Yet those who engage in it are the core of that party's core. The Labour Party did not return to office until it had become, like the Liberal Democrats but unlike the Conservative Party, constitutionally committed to the "free" market that if it were truly any such thing, would not require the constitutional commitment of political parties.

Therefore, for 40 years, all three main parties in government have assumed that the role of farmers was glorified gardening rather than the food production that was fundamental to economic prosperity and to national security. With no tribal attachment to them, nor them to it, Labour can no longer be bothered even with that. That attitude is wrong, but it is explicable. Kemi Badenoch has to try and explain how her contrary view was compatible with everything else for which she stood. Meanwhile, those of us who really can defend that interest, since our first principles compelled us to do so, are ready, willing and able.

Terms Without Limits

All the bad people are happy, but all the worse people are not. Donald Trump was supposed to have been the end of the world last time. If those who were losing their minds today meant what they were saying, then they would take to streets, or even take up arms. They have until 20 January. If they truly believed that Trump's second inauguration might realistically preclude any future election, then they would not give a damn that he had won this one. They would still do whatever it took. Public figures who have claimed that Trump would place you at risk of the gulag or the ice pick, you have until 20 January to flee.

Trump has well and truly won, and Kamala Harris has well and truly lost. Even Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Trump is the first Republican to have managed that in 20 years. There was no county in the entire country where Harris in 2024 outperformed Joe Biden in 2020. In Missouri, where Trump has undoubtedly won, voters approved a progressive increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour by January 2026, with adjustment thereafter in line with inflation. There were pro-abortion ballot propositions in 10 states, and they have certainly outperformed Harris in nine of them, massively in several cases, with Trump winning at least six states where abortion passed. It also passed in Nevada, where the Presidential result has yet to be declared. Having declined to endorse Harris, Rashida Tlaib was re-elected with 70 per cent of the vote in a district that Harris lost.

The meltdown is glorious. Black men are misogynistic. Latinos are misogynistic and racist. Hispanics and Arabs should be deported. Plus the usual class stuff, but with an even greater intensity. Unable to seek a third term even if he wanted one, Trump may or may not do anything for the people who by voting for him, or by voting for third parties, or by abstaining out of anything but apathy, had put him over the line. But they are everyone whose very existence drives liberals delirious, and not only in one country: young men and black men, Muslims and Christian Arabs, a working class that identifies as such and a Left that was told until Monday that it was irrelevant, but which is now being vilified for its failure to have done its queenmaking duty. The Latin American element is more specific to the United States, but it has obvious parallels elsewhere, including here, where in fact such communities are increasingly apparent. Make Britain Great Again.

The Undercover Public Inquiry Into Undercover Political Policing


On Thursday, 31st October 2024, lawyers (including those at PILC) representing socialists, trade unionists, social justice advocates, animal rights activists, family justice campaigners, and women who were deceived into relationships with undercover officers (collectively known as non-state Core Participants) were informed of new Reporting Restriction Orders set to be imposed this week.

An announcement posted on the Inquiry’s website stated: “A late application for a Reporting Restriction Order has been received and was granted on Thursday, October 31, by the Chair.”

The Inquiry plans to enforce this Reporting Restriction Order throughout the hearings scheduled in November and early December 2024. This order will halt live streaming of the Inquiry, which is currently broadcast on YouTube with a 10-minute delay.

What is a Reporting Restricting Order (RRO)?

An RRO is a legal order that limits or restricts what can be reported or published by the media or other parties regarding certain aspects of the inquiry. They are issued to protect specific interests such as:

i) Privacy and Anonymity: To protect the privacy individuals, especially those who may be at risk if their identities or testimony were made public.

ii) Fairness of Proceedings: To prevent media coverage – it is important to remember this public inquiry has had the most secret hearings.

iii) National Security or Public Interest: To prevent the release of information that could compromise national security, public safety, or other sensitive areas of public interest.

iv) Protecting Ongoing Investigations: To avoid interference with any concurrent or subsequent criminal or civil investigations.

What what would be the effect of the RRO as issued on 31st October 2024?

The immediate impact of the Reporting Restriction Order (RRO) is to halt the live streaming of evidence sessions, covering both activists and undercover police officers scheduled to testify.

The October 31, 2024, statement on the Inquiry’s website explains:

“The practical consequence of this Order, and the impact of other Reporting Restriction Orders in place, is that the Inquiry is unlikely to be able to live-stream evidence, subject to a 10-minute delay, for witnesses appearing in the weeks commencing 4, 11, 25 November and 2 December 2024”

The Inquiry has now entered Tranche 2, Phase 2, with live evidence sessions beginning on 21st October, 2024. This phase will largely focus on activists involved in animal rights campaigns, though not exclusively.

As it currently stands, the RRO will affect hearings scheduled from 4th November 2024 through the week commencing 2nd December, 2024. The November hearings will mainly feature activist testimony, but the RRO’s impact in early December will be particularly significant, as it will restrict the testimony of undercover officer Bob Lambert (HN10), who is due to give evidence during that week.

RRO and objections to them.

On 5th November 2024, a hearing was held where those directly affected by the Reporting Restriction Order (RRO) presented their objections. Activists scheduled to give evidence voiced their concerns, and lawyers representing over 200 Core Participants also submitted arguments opposing the RRO.

Following these objections, the Chair ruled to uphold the RRO. Consequently, live streaming on YouTube will remain suspended. However, a secure link will be made available, allowing Core Participants and media with a direct interest in the hearings and Inquiry to watch live evidence with a 10-minute delay.

Conclusion

The Inquiry has made a slight concession. Live streaming on YouTube is effectively over for this part of the Inquiry. However, the Chair has agreed to provide a secure link for those with a demonstrated need to access the evidence, subject to specific requirements.

Starting Thursday, 7th November 2024, this secure link will be available to non-state, non-police Core Participants who wish to view the proceedings.

This shift reflects a concerning move towards reduced transparency around this level of secret policing. Unfortunately, the Undercover Policing Inquiry seems to be evolving into an undercover public inquiry into undercover policing.

More Equal, More Efficient, More Effective

In the latest example of the delicious buyer’s remorse on The GuardianProfessor David Edgerton is far more right than wrong:

Has Labour got a radical economic programme, on a par with 1945 or 1964? Has it stealthily snuck this past a hostile electorate? If you glanced at coverage of last week’s “historic” budget, you could be forgiven for thinking it had. At the election, the party promised minor increases in tax and spending, and now it is proposing major increases in borrowing, taxing and spending. But while this might seem like a screeching U-turn, it is nothing of the sort. Far from being radical, Labour’s programme shows deep continuities with failed Tory ideas and policies that do not meet the requirements of the hour, let alone offer any hope for the sort of transformation Labour once provided.

Public spending was planned to fall so catastrophically over the next few years that Labour had little choice but to increase it. Had they still been in power, the Tories would have been faced with the same necessity. That’s because the scale of public spending in Britain is determined mainly by the need to provide a health service, pensions and benefits (the last on a bare-minimum level, by political choice). Imagine, for a moment, what might have happened if Labour hadn’t committed to raising spending: we would have seen increasing NHS waiting lists, schools with fewer teachers, and public investment falling to only 1.7% of GDP. An already dysfunctional state would not see supposed productivity gains, but would instead cease functioning.

There are political choices to be made about the economy, and Labour has so far made Tory choices. The government has cut the winter fuel allowance (effectively a cut to the universal state pension), maintained the cruel two-child limit, and raised the cost of many bus fares while continuing to cut taxes on motoring. And Starmer’s Labour has not chosen to restore public services to where New Labour left them in 2010; tellingly, it will spend £1.2bn on new prison places in 2025 and 2026, compared with £1.4bn on school buildings. The bigger choices are in how to fund this spending. Faced with a collapsing Conservative party, Labour had a rare opportunity to create a fairer and more progressive tax system. But it ruled out increasing income tax, the major progressive tax, and barely exploited the redistributive opportunities offered by increasing capital gains and inheritance taxes.

Employers and workers have been hit hard, while rentiers have been hit hardly at all. That is the main story from Labour’s economic programme so far. Why else would it choose to raise employers’ national insurance contributions, which is an indirect tax on working people and wages, unlike VAT or income tax? True, there is a possible positive reading of the NIC increase, together with the increased minimum wage, insofar as it rightly forces business to pay more for the cheapest labour. But Labour could have increased tax on business profits through corporation tax. It chose not to.

In an article in the Financial Times, Keir Starmer gave a clear insight into how Labour views its economic programme. He stressed that the party was about growth, not tax and spend: it was the party of business, reform, modern supply-side policies, of world-leading innovation, entrepreneurship, risk-taking and artificial intelligence. And the key policy? Financial stability and getting rid of “overweening regulators and a dysfunctional planning regime”; “[rooting] out the bureaucracy that stifles growth” to attract foreign investment to this liberalised nirvana. Labour’s overarching story is about making the country more attractive to foreign investors.

Indeed, Labour’s basic growth policy is much the same as the Tory policy of the last 40 years: liberalise, encourage foreign investment, support innovation, invest in some infrastructure and now make Brexit work. The national wealth fund, which “will mobilise billions of pounds of investment into the UK’s world-leading and clean energy and growth industries”, is a renamed and modestly expanded version of the Conservatives’ UK Infrastructure Bank (UKIB). The UKIB plan for massive support for carbon capture and storage, which directly benefits oil and gas companies, was not only continued but trumpeted as a major feature of Labour’s investment programme. Labour will also continue to subsidise North Sea oil and gas investment. The party hates Tories, but it seems to love Tory panaceas.

There is a bigger history here that Labour is choosing to ignore. The party once offered an alternative political-economic policy that shaped modern Britain. It was never, contrary to Labour myth, a party just of welfare or of growth, much less of tax and spend. It was dedicated to transforming the economy and society, and of increasing equality. There is no going back to Labour’s programmes of the years 1945-1974, which were adapted to a largely industrial economy already growing very fast. Things have changed, not least in that the UK economy is no longer a major player, and above all because we are in a new world in which we cannot drive economies by burning carbon.

Today, our aim should not be growth, but rather more equality, more effective decarbonisation, better public health and more efficient use of all our resources. And the truth is that we don’t need growth for more equality (we were more equal when we were poorer, for example in the 1970s), or for more efficiency (defined as the minimisation of inputs or costs), or efficacy (the effectiveness of an action). It should once again be a central claim of progressive politics that equality, efficacy and efficiency march together, rather than being in conflict. For example, more equality means better health and less health spending. In recent decades we have seen increasing inequality, decreasing efficacy and slowly increasing efficiency – a bad combination if ever there was one.

We now need change rather than growth. Some things should grow, while others should shrink, such as oil production and aviation. We need innovation, but creative imitation more. We need some investments, but not those that will make us less equal and less decarbonised. We need state investment, but we need to stop corporate losers lobbying governments to invest in carbon capture and storage, HS2 and overpriced nuclear power. We do not need “investable” water services, but rather decent water supplies. We should stop thinking of business as being all about entrepreneurship and “wealth creation”, given that many are neither entrepreneurial nor creating shared wealth.

If we want a more equal, more effective, more efficient and happier Britain, we can have it – even with no growth or lower GDP. But we need to want it, and to have a party that is committed to achieving this and fighting those who stand in its way. Most importantly, any form of national renewal needs new thinking, not doubling down on the failed nostrums of the last 40 years.

Strictly Off The Record: Day 17

If you are Douglas McKean, then Oliver Kamm is convinced that you and I are one and the same. I hate to have to tell you that I have never heard of you. He first contacted me about this at lunchtime on 4 July, so General Election day was obviously slow on The Times, and he has promised to involve the Police, from whom I have heard nothing. Anyone with news of any developments, do please contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Strictly off the record, of course.

Also please contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com with any news on the case of Fr Timothy Gardner OP, which was supposed to have been heard at Newcastle Crown Court in July, but of which I can find no trace. While this is not the only arrow in my quiver, unless Fr Gardner was convicted, then the latest accusations against me have absolutely no credibility, and nor does the propensity evidence that alone secured my conviction in 2020, to breach of the suspended sentence for which I wrongly pleaded guilty in 2021, leading to my imprisonment. Fr Gardner's non-conviction is not the only thing that could vindicate me. But it would do so. Any information would therefore be most gratefully received. Again, strictly off the record, of course.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

Justice Delayed: Day 123

Even assuming, and it was far from clear, that the Crown had presented any evidence whatever on the morning of Wednesday 19 June, then no later than the afternoon of Thursday 20 June, I would have been found not guilty unanimously in the time that it took to walk to the jury room and send a note to the judge. On Monday 6 November, the only Prosecution witness did not turn up, having been suspended from the Police. Since then, he has been "asked to resign" because of his conduct of my case. On Friday 14 June, my barrister formally complained.

Lo and behold, on the morning of Sunday 16 June, enough Police Officers turned up at my door to take down an al-Qaeda cell, and behaved roughly as if that were what they were doing. Everyone is laughing, and not at me. Late that night, a nonsense additional charge, quite different from the stated grounds of the arrest, was added, with no expectation that it could possibly stick, but in order to postpone what would have been that week's open-and-shut acquittal. Be at Durham Crown Court on Wednesday 26 February 2025, almost exactly two years, although we dispute the timeline, after the original complaint was allegedly made. When I shall be found not guilty. But the process is the punishment.

Rather than embarrass itself any further, the Crown did not even ask for me to be remanded. Nor did it dispute that the Police had found nothing on my laptop or on my phone, even though the latest allegation therefore cannot be true. And nor did it dispute that its only witness had been sacked from the Police because of my case, or that this latest action against me was a revenge attack for my barrister's complaint, both of which are now on Monday 17 June's record of Newton Aycliffe Magistrates' Court, as is the cleanliness of my devices, of which the Police are nevertheless keeping possession, requiring me to replace them at considerable expense.

I wish that my solicitor had used such terms as "Mafia hit" and "punishment beating". I am using them now. This is a punishment beating for the sacked policeman. And it is a Mafia hit by some Fredo Corleone, because the latest complaint was supposedly made before I had withdrawn from the General Election, a withdrawal that has rendered it pointless in its own terms. Other than the unpaid position to which I was elected unopposed well over a year ago, and which has therefore been kept vacant ever since, I have no intention of contesting another election to public office.

Welcome to the Starmer State, which institutional Britain has treated as the status quo since Keir Starmer became Labour Leader. I am not the only dissident that it persecutes, and things are already getting an awful lot worse now that Starmer is Prime Minister.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Safeguarding Challenge: Day 482

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, Sarah Kilmartin, Jenny Holmes, Sir David Behan, and Sr Una Coogan IBVM.

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 Gail McGregor, Paul Weatherstone, Fr Christopher Hancock MHM, Canon William Agley, Catherine Dyer, Canon Martin Stempczyk, Canon Peter Leighton VG, Maureen Dale, and Tony Lawless.

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, Andrew Grant, Kirsty McIntyre, Lisa Short, Yvonne Brown, and Petra Scarr.

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 482

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 seeking the position of General Secretary of Unite the Union on a programme including disaffiliation from the Labour Party, a proposal that would be hugely popular two years into a Starmer Government.

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 Monica Burch, Stephen Parkinson, 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 Tristan Bradshaw, Dawn Brodrick, Mike Browne, Steve Buckingham, Matthew Cain, 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, Stephen Parkinson, Michael Dunn, Deborah Harris, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan.

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 Kathryn Stone, Stephen Parkinson, 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 1186

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 1186

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.

And I invite each and every Member of Parliament whose constituency fell wholly or partly in County Durham 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.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

Tuesday 5 November 2024

Gunpowder, Treason and Plot

Are those fireworks? Or has the Secret Army heard that the Queen was ill, and emerged from the undergrowth to seize power at last? Most people think that we are celebrating Guy Fawkes as a folk hero for having tried to blow up Parliament. Even those who know the history enter into that spirit by calling him “the last man to enter that place with an honourable intention” and so on. On 16 October 1834, it burned down anyway. 229 years earlier, most Catholics had had no idea about the Gunpowder Plot, and they would have disapproved of it in the strongest possible terms. But they, of course, paid the price for it.

Just as they did for the Spanish Armada, even though the Navy that defeated it was commanded by a Catholic, Lord Howard of Effingham, as loyal to his Queen Elizabeth as I was to mine. Philip of Spain had expected to be supported by a Catholic uprising in England. But there never was one. As anyone who had known anything about the English Catholics could have told him that there was never going to be.

Disabled People Can Only Hope

Frances Ryan writes:

In the days after the budget, the headlines were dominated by talk of Rachel Reeves’s “tax and spend” bonanza. The message was clear: austerity is officially over. When there was concern about squeezed incomes, it was solely for workers. As the Mail front page put it: “Reeves’ £40bn tax bombshell for Britain’s strivers”. Almost a week later, there has still barely been a word about the policy set to hit the group long scapegoated as Britain’s skivers: the billions of pounds’ worth of benefit cuts for disabled people.

Making up just a couple of lines in a 77-minute speech, you’d have been forgiven for dozing past Reeves’ blink-and-you’d-miss-it bombshell. With a record number of Britons off work with long-term illness, the government will need to “reduce the benefits bill”, she said, before noting ministers had “inherited” the Conservatives’ plans to reform the work capability assessment (WCA). That plan, let’s not forget, was to take up to £4,900 a year each from 450,000 people who are too sick or disabled to work – a move that the Resolution Foundation says would “degrade living standards” for families already on some of the lowest incomes in the country.

That’s on top of Tory proposals to tighten eligibility for personal independence payments (Pip) – which Labour has been consulting on since the election – that would push the cuts to a steep £3bn.

“We will deliver those savings as part of our fundamental reforms to the health and disability benefits system that the work and pensions secretary [Liz Kendall] will bring forward,” Reeves went on. It turns out austerity isn’t over for everyone.

It’s no wonder that many disabled people – and charities and journalists for that matter – thought this meant Labour would implement the outgoing Tory policies. In fact, the government has no such plan. When I spoke to the Department for Work and Pensions, it confirmed it will make the same “savings” the last government committed to – but it cannot as yet say how those savings will be made.

A spokesperson confirmed to me that the WCA needs to be “reformed or replaced as part of a proper plan to genuinely support disabled people into work – bringing down the benefits bill and ensuring we continue to deliver the savings set out by the previous government. But these sorts of changes shouldn’t be made in haste. That’s why we’re taking the time to review this in the round before setting out next steps on our approach.” When I pressed, they added that changes to the WCA – whatever they may be – will come into effect in early 2025.

There is something faintly ludicrous about the government announcing billions of pounds of cuts to disability benefits before working out how it is going to do it, akin to the Child Catcher wielding a big net and not caring who it is he traps. It is right that the WCA – long known to be a dangerously faulty assessment – is consigned to the scrapheap. But “reform” should not mean less funding, and reducing funding should not be the purpose of reform.

Much like when George Osborne aimed to cut the disability benefits bill by a fifth, “welfare reform” based on arbitrary cost-cutting says the quiet part out loud: benefits won’t be awarded based on who needs them – just on what they cost. It is social security by spreadsheet, severing the social contract that promises the state will be there in times of sickness and disability, and adding a footnote that says, “but only if we can afford it”. That last week’s budget revealed huge investment for infrastructure at the same time as disability benefit cuts exposes how even the affordability argument is largely fabricated. There is money to fix hospital buildings but not to feed a nurse bedbound with long Covid.

The financial impact of such “reform” on those relying on benefits is well established but the psychological toll should not be underestimated. Since gaining power, Labour has drip-fed the rightwing press sound bites and op-eds on potential benefit cuts, leaving news outlets to speculate wildly for clicks. The budget’s half-announcement has only added to the confusion and fear, issuing vague dog whistles of “fraud” and high “benefit bills” while forcing millions of people to wait months to find out if they will lose the money they need to live.

It is not simply that such delays create uncertainty for those affected, they also create space and legitimacy for a politics of resentment and prejudice. In the days after the budget, Reform MP Rupert Lowe took to X to list some of the health conditions people receive Pip for and pronounce to his followers which ones were least-deserving. Hours later, former Sunday Times political editor Isabel Oakeshott went on TalkTV to call disability benefit recipients “parasites”.

It would be easy to say this stuff is repulsive – it is – but it is also a very real symptom of years of stagnating wages, high bills, pressured public services and a media ecosystem that too often distorts and divides. Crudely, these conditions do two things to a population that we are already seeing fester in Britain: they make some people sick and reliant on the safety net – and they turn other people against them.

By the end of this parliament, the Office for Budget Responsibility says, half of all claims for the main benefit will be on health grounds, as the impact of NHS delays, a pandemic and increasing poverty continues to bite. As Labour mulls over what it will cost our society to provide this support, it might be worth considering what it would cost us not to. That particular price cannot be measured in bills and debt but is altogether more ruinous: a nation doomed to repeat the same mistakes, growing ever meaner and colder towards those who have less.

That Kemi Badenoch – a small-state zealot whose culture war targets include autistic children – is now leader of the opposition only reinforces the urgency of a Labour government that stokes the best, not worst, of our instincts. By its own timeline, the party now has a few months to hunt for its conscience. Disabled people can only hope it finds it.

Strictly Off The Record: Day 16

If you are Douglas McKean, then Oliver Kamm is convinced that you and I are one and the same. I hate to have to tell you that I have never heard of you. He first contacted me about this at lunchtime on 4 July, so General Election day was obviously slow on The Times, and he has promised to involve the Police, from whom I have heard nothing. Anyone with news of any developments, do please contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Strictly off the record, of course.

Also please contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com with any news on the case of Fr Timothy Gardner OP, which was supposed to have been heard at Newcastle Crown Court in July, but of which I can find no trace. While this is not the only arrow in my quiver, unless Fr Gardner was convicted, then the latest accusations against me have absolutely no credibility, and nor does the propensity evidence that alone secured my conviction in 2020, to breach of the suspended sentence for which I wrongly pleaded guilty in 2021, leading to my imprisonment. Fr Gardner's non-conviction is not the only thing that could vindicate me. But it would do so. Any information would therefore be most gratefully received. Again, strictly off the record, of course.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

Justice Delayed: Day 122

Even assuming, and it was far from clear, that the Crown had presented any evidence whatever on the morning of Wednesday 19 June, then no later than the afternoon of Thursday 20 June, I would have been found not guilty unanimously in the time that it took to walk to the jury room and send a note to the judge. On Monday 6 November, the only Prosecution witness did not turn up, having been suspended from the Police. Since then, he has been "asked to resign" because of his conduct of my case. On Friday 14 June, my barrister formally complained.

Lo and behold, on the morning of Sunday 16 June, enough Police Officers turned up at my door to take down an al-Qaeda cell, and behaved roughly as if that were what they were doing. Everyone is laughing, and not at me. Late that night, a nonsense additional charge, quite different from the stated grounds of the arrest, was added, with no expectation that it could possibly stick, but in order to postpone what would have been that week's open-and-shut acquittal. Be at Durham Crown Court on Wednesday 26 February 2025, almost exactly two years, although we dispute the timeline, after the original complaint was allegedly made. When I shall be found not guilty. But the process is the punishment.

Rather than embarrass itself any further, the Crown did not even ask for me to be remanded. Nor did it dispute that the Police had found nothing on my laptop or on my phone, even though the latest allegation therefore cannot be true. And nor did it dispute that its only witness had been sacked from the Police because of my case, or that this latest action against me was a revenge attack for my barrister's complaint, both of which are now on Monday 17 June's record of Newton Aycliffe Magistrates' Court, as is the cleanliness of my devices, of which the Police are nevertheless keeping possession, requiring me to replace them at considerable expense.

I wish that my solicitor had used such terms as "Mafia hit" and "punishment beating". I am using them now. This is a punishment beating for the sacked policeman. And it is a Mafia hit by some Fredo Corleone, because the latest complaint was supposedly made before I had withdrawn from the General Election, a withdrawal that has rendered it pointless in its own terms. Other than the unpaid position to which I was elected unopposed well over a year ago, and which has therefore been kept vacant ever since, I have no intention of contesting another election to public office.

Welcome to the Starmer State, which institutional Britain has treated as the status quo since Keir Starmer became Labour Leader. I am not the only dissident that it persecutes, and things are already getting an awful lot worse now that Starmer is Prime Minister.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Safeguarding Challenge: Day 481

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, Sarah Kilmartin, Jenny Holmes, Sir David Behan, and Sr Una Coogan IBVM.

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 Gail McGregor, Paul Weatherstone, Fr Christopher Hancock MHM, Canon William Agley, Catherine Dyer, Canon Martin Stempczyk, Canon Peter Leighton VG, Maureen Dale, and Tony Lawless.

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, Andrew Grant, Kirsty McIntyre, Lisa Short, Yvonne Brown, and Petra Scarr.

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 481

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 seeking the position of General Secretary of Unite the Union on a programme including disaffiliation from the Labour Party, a proposal that would be hugely popular two years into a Starmer Government.

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 Monica Burch, Stephen Parkinson, 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 Tristan Bradshaw, Dawn Brodrick, Mike Browne, Steve Buckingham, Matthew Cain, 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, Stephen Parkinson, Michael Dunn, Deborah Harris, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan.

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 Kathryn Stone, Stephen Parkinson, 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 1185

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 1185

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.

And I invite each and every Member of Parliament whose constituency fell wholly or partly in County Durham 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.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

Monday 4 November 2024

Unapologetically Ambitious

Even in the watered down form of the Employment Rights Bill, the expansion of workers' rights will be little more than meaningless when the increase in employers' National Insurance contributions had precluded pay rises, and in some cases caused redundancies.

But hope springs eternal. Kim McGuinness wants to know our views and suggestions on local transport. As well as reminding her that Andy Burnham and Tracy Brabin were retaining the two pound cap on bus fares, meaning that it could be done, you know what you have to do.

Churn Over?

"That boy should be getting us coffee," said Bill Clinton to Ted Kennedy of Barack Obama. Donald Trump did not invent birtherism. That was the Clintons. Bill's remarks in Muskegon, Michigan prove that he has not changed a bit. Yet while echoing those sentiments to the point of making Priti Patel Shadow Foreign Secretary, our own dear Conservative Party now seems to operate a kind of birtherism in reverse, according to which someone born in London has to affect to be a first generation immigrant in order to become Leader.

Kemi Badenoch not only thinks that partygate was "overblown", but also that the regulations breached should never have been imposed, in spite of which Boris Johnson was somehow "a great Prime Minister". Johnson, by the way, really was born abroad, and not even in the Commonwealth. But the point here is that Badenoch would be offering none of the cross-party support that Keir Starmer did when Starmer acted against both resurgent Covid-19 and what we must now call Mpox. To whom was "monkeypox" offensive? Anyway, Badenoch has given notice that she would not support any such invocation of Margaret Thatcher's Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. But from Rishi Sunak down, what of the veterans of the last Conservative Government who had left the frontbench? What of the third of Conservative MPs who had voted for James Cleverly?

Crown Jewels

British republicans can always be silenced for at least four years by the election of an American Republican as President, so any outpouring of such sentiment in response to Saturday's Dispatches may be over by the end of this week. At any rate, that is true of the sort of republicans who make documentaries for Channel 4. The presence of Margaret Hodge made it obvious on what grounds the salonistes now felt that this subject could safely be broached. They may not know who would be President, but they know who no longer could be.

Or do they? The kind of Britons who warm to Donald Trump disagree with the present King about almost everything, so that Richard Tice repeatedly called for the then Queen to be succeeded by President Nigel Farage, Laurence Fox's Reclaim Party was avowedly republican throughout its brief period of relative relevance, and things like The Light are vitriolically hostile both to the monarchy and to the Royal Family. The institution ties Britain to the Commonwealth, while the dynasty has both very deep and very recent roots on the Continent.

What passes in a Richard Rogers building on Horseferry Road is therefore the least of the worries of the Duke of Lancaster and of the Duke of Cornwall. Successive Governments have wanted to privatise Channel 4, but in Nixon and China fashion, it would probably take a right-wing Labour one to pull it off. The Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall should buy the broadcaster of Dispatches. The House always wins, and the House in this case is that of Oldenburg, specifically of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.

The Royal Duchies might make themselves useful across the board. Harland & Wolff used to be owned by the British State. It is poised to be bought by Navantia, which is the Spanish State. Britain will allow ownership by any state apart from our own. But if the Royal Duchies are private estates engaged in commerce, then what Thatcherite or Blairite could object to their purchase of, say, Thames Water? Thames Water's bonds are now classified as junk. How much could it possibly cost to buy a company like that? And so on. Either these acquisitions would work, or the outcry would be so loud that the real solution, renationalisation, would become unstoppable.

The Attlee Government missed a trick in not branding the nationalised industries "Royal", with crowns and royal cyphers all over them. It would have assumed that privatisation, a word that did not exist at the time, was inconceivable. In the end, not even the Crown and the Cypher saved the Royal Mail, but Margaret Thatcher had ruled out its privatisation, "because it's Royal." If so had everything else been, then on her own principles, she could not have privatised any of them. Better luck next time? Amend the next available piece of legislation to proclaim the Royal National Health Service.

In Our Stride?

Mel Stride thought that Personal Independence Payment was thousands of pounds per month. He is now the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. Rachel Reeves must wish that she were punching down even harder. From tomorrow, she probably will be.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary is Priti Patel, whom Theresa May had to sack as International Development Secretary because Patel had attempted to divert overseas aid money to a Golan Heights field hospital that Israel had given to the so-called Islamic State.

In Gaza, Hamas eliminated al-Qaeda's Jahafil Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad fi Filastin, and Hamas executes the IS-affiliated Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade. Hezbollah has been fighting against both IS and al-Qaeda for as long as each has existed. But Israel and IS have never attacked each other, and when Shamima Begum went to join IS in Syria, then she went to join the side that the Conservative-led Government of the day was supporting even while bombing it in Iraq.

As of today, Patel's hitherto freelance foreign policy is that of the Official Opposition, Shadowing David Lammy, whose assertion that there had to be a million deaths for there to be a genocide has not been retracted a week later, so that we must assume it to be the position of His Majesty's Government.

Net immigration reached its highest ever level when Patel was Home Secretary. And if, having turned down Health, Housing (yes, really), Work and Pensions, and who knows what else, the Robert Jenrick who failed in his own terms as Immigration Minister has indeed been made Shadow Justice Secretary, then we look forward to the would-be Lord Chancellor's being struck off as a solicitor for having prejudiced an ongoing criminal case, and quite possibly to his being found in contempt of court, the same crime for which Stephen Yaxley-Lennon was pleasuring His Majesty. Withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights was Jenrick's signature policy for Leader, and he lost. If he has accepted the position of Shadow Justice Secretary, then on what terms?

Undermined The Very Ethos


If the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – to give it its full title – does pass, practical measures must be adopted to protect patients as much as possible. Kim Leadbeater, the MP who proposed the bill, has insisted that adequate safeguards can be put in place, although many of the details in the bill are yet to be made public.

This is hardly reassuring. Other countries’ experiences have shown that maintaining strict safeguards for physician-assisted dying always fails. It is a certainty that if assisted dying is legalised, patients who shouldn’t die will die. But two factors do seem to offer patients at least some measure of protection: the eligibility criteria for assisted suicide and the role of physicians in the process. We can see this in the contrasting experiences of two places that have legalised assisted dying: Canada and California.

The populations of Canada and California, at around 40million each, are comparable. The overall demographics, while not identical, are similar, and there are no significant differences in the leading causes of death, overall death rates or access to palliative-care services. Yet the difference in the numbers of assisted deaths between Canada and California is huge. Between 2016 and 2021, California recorded 3,344 assisted deaths, while Canada recorded 31,664.

In fact, in 2021 alone, there were 10,064 assisted deaths in Canada. That accounts for 3.3 per cent of all deaths nationwide. That same year in California, there were 486 deaths, which account for just 0.15 per cent of all deaths statewide.

The first reason for the disparity is clear. The standard a patient has to meet before he or she is eligible for assisted dying is much higher in California than it is in Canada. In California, a patient must have a terminal illness, with death reasonably expected within six months. In Canada, there is no requirement for the patient to have a terminal disease and death does not have to be imminent. Indeed, under Canadian legislation, a patient can be eligible by claiming to be enduring ‘unbearable suffering’ from a medical condition. There is also no requirement for medical practitioners to have tried any other options to relieve a patient’s suffering. In Canada, a patient’s seeming willingness to die matters more than what they’re diagnosed with and what treatment they’ve received.

Unsurprisingly, the looser Canadian criteria drastically expand the number of candidates for assisted suicide. They also raise legitimate concerns about the safety of the disabled, those with mental illness or depression, and patients with chronic but not terminal conditions.

Social factors matter here, too. Is assisted dying really an ‘autonomous choice’ if it’s made by those who are vulnerable, facing dire poverty, inadequate social services or failing healthcare systems? Data from Canada suggest not. A recent expert committee reviewing euthanasia deaths in Ontario, Canada’s largest province, found that a significant number of people who received euthanasia lived in the province’s poorest areas. People requesting euthanasia were also more likely to require disability support and be socially isolated. As one doctor on the expert committee put it: ‘To finally have a government report that recognises these cases of concern is extremely important. We’ve been gaslit for so many years when we raised fears about people [accessing assisted suicide] because they were poor, disabled or socially isolated.’

There is a second major reason for the disparity between Canada and California – namely, the role doctors play. California only allows physicians to prescribe medications for patients’ oral self-administration once the patient has resolved to die. Physicians are not allowed to administer lethal injections. This accounts for the low number of patient requests that are actually carried out in California – in fact, just 1.9 per cent of all requests in 2021 ended in death. Most patients either change their minds or die before they find it necessary to consume their lethal medications. There were no recorded instances of doctors administering lethal injections in the 486 assisted deaths in 2021. In Canada, however, doctors play a far more hands-on role, administering euthanasia via lethal injections. Of the 10,064 assisted deaths in Canada in 2021, 10,057 were by lethal injection.

The Canadian law allows doctors to euthanise patients with impunity. Prosecutions for improper practice are non-existent. Commenting on cases in the Ontario report, Trudo Lemmens, professor of health law and policy at the University of Toronto, said medical professional bodies and judicial authorities appeared to be ‘unwilling to curtail practices that appear ethically problematic… Either the law is too broad, or the professional guidance is not precise enough, or it is simply not seen as a priority to protect some of our most vulnerable citizens.’

There is no greater power than that over life and death. This is what assisted-dying legislation grants to doctors. It cannot help but muddy the relationship between patients and physicians. Will patients look their doctors in the eye and wonder what is in the back of their minds when they recommend assisted suicide?

A tenet of the medical profession that dates back to Hippocrates of Cos is that ‘I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan’. Any legislation involving assisted dying surely compromises this responsibility to patients. As Dr Sonu Gaind, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, put it, ‘what we’re doing in many cases is the opposite of suicide prevention’.

And there’s the rub. Legalising assisted dying undermines the very ethos of the medical profession. Whatever happened to ‘first, do no harm’?

72 Weeks On

Nominations have been closed for 72 weeks, 18 months, a year and a half, so when is the election?

If I sought election to any other public position now, then I would rapidly find myself just another death in custody, especially under a Starmer or post-Starmer Government, and most especially if Labour had also taken back control of Durham County Council next year.

But I was a public governor of County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust from 2017 to 2020, having been elected unopposed, an extremely unusual occurrence. Unopposed among the 90,000 or more people in the part of County Durham that I was elected to represent. I failed to be re-elected by three votes, on a recount. Yet I was again elected unopposed well over a year ago, a double feat that I am not aware that anyone else has ever managed, and which has caused the position to be kept vacant ever since. I am determined to have it for at least as long as I was elected to it. Do your worst. As, now under both parties, you are already doing to far better than I.

Strictly Off The Record: Day 15

If you are Douglas McKean, then Oliver Kamm is convinced that you and I are one and the same. I hate to have to tell you that I have never heard of you. He first contacted me about this at lunchtime on 4 July, so General Election day was obviously slow on The Times, and he has promised to involve the Police, from whom I have heard nothing. Anyone with news of any developments, do please contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Strictly off the record, of course.

Also please contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com with any news on the case of Fr Timothy Gardner OP, which was supposed to have been heard at Newcastle Crown Court in July, but of which I can find no trace. While this is not the only arrow in my quiver, unless Fr Gardner was convicted, then the latest accusations against me have absolutely no credibility, and nor does the propensity evidence that alone secured my conviction in 2020, to breach of the suspended sentence for which I wrongly pleaded guilty in 2021, leading to my imprisonment. Fr Gardner's non-conviction is not the only thing that could vindicate me. But it would do so. Any information would therefore be most gratefully received. Again, strictly off the record, of course.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

Justice Delayed: Day 121

Even assuming, and it was far from clear, that the Crown had presented any evidence whatever on the morning of Wednesday 19 June, then no later than the afternoon of Thursday 20 June, I would have been found not guilty unanimously in the time that it took to walk to the jury room and send a note to the judge. On Monday 6 November, the only Prosecution witness did not turn up, having been suspended from the Police. Since then, he has been "asked to resign" because of his conduct of my case. On Friday 14 June, my barrister formally complained.

Lo and behold, on the morning of Sunday 16 June, enough Police Officers turned up at my door to take down an al-Qaeda cell, and behaved roughly as if that were what they were doing. Everyone is laughing, and not at me. Late that night, a nonsense additional charge, quite different from the stated grounds of the arrest, was added, with no expectation that it could possibly stick, but in order to postpone what would have been that week's open-and-shut acquittal. Be at Durham Crown Court on Wednesday 26 February 2025, almost exactly two years, although we dispute the timeline, after the original complaint was allegedly made. When I shall be found not guilty. But the process is the punishment.

Rather than embarrass itself any further, the Crown did not even ask for me to be remanded. Nor did it dispute that the Police had found nothing on my laptop or on my phone, even though the latest allegation therefore cannot be true. And nor did it dispute that its only witness had been sacked from the Police because of my case, or that this latest action against me was a revenge attack for my barrister's complaint, both of which are now on Monday 17 June's record of Newton Aycliffe Magistrates' Court, as is the cleanliness of my devices, of which the Police are nevertheless keeping possession, requiring me to replace them at considerable expense.

I wish that my solicitor had used such terms as "Mafia hit" and "punishment beating". I am using them now. This is a punishment beating for the sacked policeman. And it is a Mafia hit by some Fredo Corleone, because the latest complaint was supposedly made before I had withdrawn from the General Election, a withdrawal that has rendered it pointless in its own terms. Other than the unpaid position to which I was elected unopposed well over a year ago, and which has therefore been kept vacant ever since, I have no intention of contesting another election to public office.

Welcome to the Starmer State, which institutional Britain has treated as the status quo since Keir Starmer became Labour Leader. I am not the only dissident that it persecutes, and things are already getting an awful lot worse now that Starmer is Prime Minister.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Safeguarding Challenge: Day 480

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, Sarah Kilmartin, Jenny Holmes, Sir David Behan, and Sr Una Coogan IBVM.

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 Gail McGregor, Paul Weatherstone, Fr Christopher Hancock MHM, Canon William Agley, Catherine Dyer, Canon Martin Stempczyk, Canon Peter Leighton VG, Maureen Dale, and Tony Lawless.

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, Andrew Grant, Kirsty McIntyre, Lisa Short, Yvonne Brown, and Petra Scarr.

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 480

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 seeking the position of General Secretary of Unite the Union on a programme including disaffiliation from the Labour Party, a proposal that would be hugely popular two years into a Starmer Government.

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 Monica Burch, Stephen Parkinson, 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 Tristan Bradshaw, Dawn Brodrick, Mike Browne, Steve Buckingham, Matthew Cain, 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, Stephen Parkinson, Michael Dunn, Deborah Harris, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan.

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 Kathryn Stone, Stephen Parkinson, 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 1184

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 1184

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.

And I invite each and every Member of Parliament whose constituency fell wholly or partly in County Durham 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.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

Sunday 3 November 2024

Openly Abrasive?

Although they have yet to approach Brexit levels, and although we may yet have seen nothing this side of Trump Tuesday, the centrist media have not been so entertainingly shrill since High Corbynism. They are beside themselves that we do not love this Prime Minister and his Government, this Chancellor of the Exchequer and her Budget. What do we mean, that these feel like the dying months of an exhausted third term, with a General Election due in the spring? Even the trade union bureaucracy is waking up, with Unite seeking a judicial review of the withdrawal of the Winter Fuel Payment.

Still, at least those media believe what they are saying. The right-wing media are stuck pretending to hold a position that has turned out to have little or no following, having been first disowned by Reform UK, and now defeated even among the grassroots members of the Conservative Party. There are anarcho-syndicalist newspapers and magazines in this country, but no one treats them as important. 

And again, at least everyone who writes for them really is an anarcho-syndicalist. Beyond the economic policy on which they had little disagreement with Keir Starmer and with Rachel Reeves, and beyond the foreign policy on which they had no disagreement with Starmer and with David Lammy, most of the people writing for the Rightist papers and appearing on the associated television channel believe little or nothing that they are saying for the money.

Their horror is palpable at the advent of a Leader of the Opposition who takes the culture war stuff seriously. They remain devoted instead to the memory of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, whose courts were downright decadent, and who, whatever either of them may say now, pursued increased immigration as an economic growth strategy, to the extent that 2022, the year when they were both Prime Minister, had Britain's highest ever net immigration. Donald Trump's fanboys should also consider the position of both of them on Ukraine.

Kemi Badenoch has been known to talk the talk without walking the walk on gender self-identification, and she has been equivocal about assisted suicide. In general, though, if it is what used to be called social conservatism that you want, then the communities of post-War immigrant origin are where you need to look. Notice that after the acquittal of Sergeant Martyn Blake, no one rioted. Ask those who did riot this year what they wanted, and it would be a thus-far-and-no-further cultural settlement from about 30 years ago, except with less religion than even then. But with far better food.

No One Dared To Ask?

"Listen, Israel"? I ask you! Bellyache all you like about the cost, but anything is worth it to be free of the Jerusalem Bible Lectionary. In any case, you of the ecclesiastical salariat and its hangers on routinely spend more than that of our money on a lunch over which to do us down. That brings us to this post's main point.

Do the four known suicides of wronged subpostmasters prove their guilt? Here is your weekly reminder that this could not have been an executive summary of this. That would have been impossible, since they bear no resemblance to each other. It is all here, including on the ludicrous definition of "grooming" that was used to hound Canon Michael McCoy to his death, and including on the nonsense about Fr Timothy Gardner OP. Something has changed since 3 May 2023. What is it? And where is the original report?

I have no qualms about styling Fr Gardner OP as such, since he has not been laicised, nor, unless I am very much mistaken, has he been dismissed from the Order of Preachers. It has been 25 weeks since I emailed the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, Susan Dungworth, in the following terms: "I appreciate that this is not strictly your responsibility, but I have been completely unable to find an email address for Northumbria Police, so please forward this to them. Fr Timothy Gardner OP is due back before Newcastle Crown Court in July. As set out below, ... the case against Fr Gardner needs to be halted immediately. At the very least, his solicitor and barrister need to be made aware of these facts. Very many thanks."

I do not resile from this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this or this. Rather, I reiterate every word of each and all of them. There was no cathedral sex party. The move from the old Bishop's House to the new one made a profit. There was no allegation of sexual assault against Bishop Robert Byrne CO, who should sue every media outlet that had suggested one.

Although I am often asked, I know neither where nor how Bishop Byrne is. But I am often asked. I am not doing Marko Rupnik, because that would involve siding with the people who had done nothing for Bishop Byrne. They and Rupnik can all go to Hell in the same handcart. Nor am I interested in anything that you might have to say about Bishop Joseph Strickland unless you had fought for Bishop Byrne.

I may not, but I may, accept the present report when Bishop Byrne had done so, and to the extent that he had done so. His Lordship has yet to do so to any extent. At least while that remains the case, then I reject the whole thing out of hand, and so should you. The sum total of the charge sheet against Bishop Byrne is that he did not automatically do as he was told by the hired help. But Pat Buckley, who died in May, did not like Bishop Stephen Wright, so Bishop Wright must be all right.

Indeed, His Lordship preached well at his Enthronement. He clearly has a deep spirituality. There was also a speech by a self-identified survivor of clerical sexual abuse, one Maggie Vickerman. Neither her case, nor those to which she referred, had anything to do with Bishop Byrne, if they really happened at all. How do we know? At most, they were long before his brief time in this Diocese. If anything, certain people with some responsibility for them were in that sanctuary. Nor did Ms Vickerman make any attempt to disguise her theological agenda. Well, nor do I make any attempt to disguise mine.