Monday 9 July 2007

Could You Be An MEP?

You could be, if you are an economically left-wing, morally and socially conservative opponent of European federalism, American hegemony, globalisation and Islamisation, who would be prepared to stand as an Independent candidate at the 2009 European Elections, describing yourself as "pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker, and anti-war". A full Statement of Principles is available from me at davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, to be released over the names of the 12 candidates (one in each region) as soon as that list is complete, and most preferably by the end of this month.

We could attract the support of huge numbers of traditional Labour and Tory voters, including those who vote for Independent Councillors, and including at least half of those who voted for the UK Independence Party at the last European Elections, i.e., those UKIP voters who do or would ordinarily vote Labour. We could also attract traditional Liberal Democrat supporters in that party's heartlands of the West Country, rural Scotland, Mid-Wales and elsewhere, where Eurosceptical, and morally and socially conservative, views are widely and deeply held. And between thirty-four and thirty-eight per cent of respondents to opinion polls now consistently indicate an intention not to vote; this initiative offers the possibility of representation at least for a significant section of those otherwise disenfranchised.

Furthermore, our candidates will be seeking an alliance with Independent Groups (and with small, very local parties) on Councils, undertaking to act as foci for a collective effort to secure one or two policy priorities in each of their respective areas.

The general flavour of this project may be discerned from some of the purportedly abusive descriptions of me on the blogsphere: "the prophet, apostle and high priest of paleo-Labour" (defined as "Old Labour means to High Tory ends"); "the statist, syndicalist, nationalist and theoconservative voice of the provinces"; "a reactionary Catholic and a Little Briton masquerading as a Socialist"; "a pan-Arabist, a pan-Slavist, and a Bolivarian"; "a product of the right-wing Labour machine in its one-party fiefdom of County Durham"; "a ghastly throwback to the days when Constituency Labour Parties were dominated by union closed shops full of Catholic fundamentalists, Methodist local preachers and working-class Tories"; and many more besides.

At least in Scotland, in the three Northern regions, in the two Midland regions and in London, our candidates will organise the huge pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker, anti-war constituency. Here in the North East, I as the candidate will also lead the constantly necessary opposition to the massively unpopular, ever-reviving regional assembly scheme, currently being slipped in under cover of the demented proposal that Durham and Northumberland County Councils become unitary authorities.

In Scotland, our candidate will provide a focus for the English-speaking working-class constituency, black and white; for the constituency made up of those who see the United Kingdom as their country, which no one has the right to take away from them; for the constituency now in desperate need of serious action against the Common Fisheries Policy; for the constituency anxious to protect the integrity of the Scottish legal system, already signed away by submission to the European Court of Justice; and for the constituency that is rightly furious the enforcement of Gaelic in historically Norse, and thus English-speaking, Caithness, Orkney and Shetland; among others.

In Wales, our candidate will lead the fight for the English-speaking majority, and above all for the English-speaking working class (black and white), which, exactly as predicted by Leo Abse during the 1970s devolution debates, is experiencing increasing repression by a bilingual elite.

In Northern Ireland, our candidate will give a voice to the broadly or soundly Unionist forty to forty-four per cent of Catholics, as well as giving a voice to all Unionists who believe in the universal and comprehensive Welfare State (including, for example, farm subsidies), and in the strong statutory and other (including trade union) protection of workers, consumers, communities and the environment, the former delivered by the partnership between a strong Parliament and strong local government, the whole paid for by progressive taxation, and all these good things underwritten by full employment.

In London, our candidate will be a force for black and white English-speaking unity against the racist and anti-proletarian roots and fruits of the Europeanist project, against mass immigration as the importation of a new working class (which understands no English except commands, has no idea of workers' rights in this country, can be moved around at will because it has no attachment to any specific locality here, and can be deported if it steps out of line), against enforced multilingualism's creation of a repressive elite (as in Wales), and against EU-inspired neglect of the Commonwealth in general and of those countries with which we share a Head of State in particular.

In London, the South East, the East Midlands, the West Midlands, the North West, and Yorkshire & The Humber, our candidates will prevent the BNP's breakthrough by providing a non-racist (indeed, an anti-racist) alternative for those opposed to European federalism, mass immigration, the undermining of the family, and soft policies on crime, drugs and antisocial behaviour.

In the South West, our candidate will fight against the Common Fisheries Policy, will fight on rural issues generally, and will fight for Gibraltarians' Catholic values while not only promising to respect the wishes of the Gibraltarian people in relation to their British sovereignty and identity, but also campaigning actively for the retention of that sovereignty and identity, which is very much a cause of the Left in Gibraltar. As I write, I am waiting to hear from our friends there.

And so forth, around the country.

Do not be afraid of the traditional parties. They have almost no remaining members, and they are kept going by large subventions from the State and the super-rich. At the last General Election, Labour won with only twenty-two per cent of the eligible vote, while the Tories limped in with a mere twenty per cent. The number of those saying that they are going to abstain next time is more than twice the number of those saying that they are going to vote Liberal Democrat. All in all, the parties are ripe for replacement by a pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker, anti-war movement. Let's do it!

So, any volunteers?

65 comments:

  1. Yes! I will, but I'm only prepared to stand in the North East. You could always stand somewhere else. Or maybe you would be better in a backroom job than as a candidate. Are you sure you want to stand yourself? Maybe you should wait and see if anyone better applies.

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  2. Now hang on a minute! I want to stand too! But I will only stand in the North East. Maybe David could stand in London, and Alex could stand in the South West?

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  3. Oh well, it's a list system. Anyway, you'll both need to email me (davidaslindsay@hotmail.com), so that I can send you the material.

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  4. I was not aware that there was any attempt to enforce the Gaelic language in Orkney and Shetland. If anything in recent years the Shetlanders (and possibly the Orcadians as well) have been putting up road signs in old Norse.

    It will be enforced in Caithness largely because they are in the same local authority with much of the mainland Gaeltacht - Highland Council. However not sure if Gaelic is taught in schools there.

    Outside the Gaeltacht there is little Gaelic signage. Maybe the name of a pub in Glasgow or a Gaelic translation here or there in that city, otherwise nothing. There is a Gaelic school in Glasgow, all this influenced by the migration of Gaelic speakers over the centuries

    Edinburgh and Aberdeen have little if any Gaelic signage.

    Gaelic has not been the language of the Scottish state since the sons of Malcolm III Canmore largely due to the influence of their mother St Margaret. Largely the Scottish court initially was tri-lingual in Gaelic, Norman French and the English dialect known as Inglis which developed into Scots. Of course Latin was the language of government administration.

    Last Scottish monarch to be fluent in Gaelic was Malcolm iv (1153-1165) although many monarchs immedicately after him were conversant in the language. It is generally considered that Robert the Bruce spoke Gaelic as he apparently conducted a Parliament in the language whilst on the run. His mother was a Gaelic speaker.

    After that the language fell out of use in the Scottish court although James iv was able to speak it.

    Scots (northern English mixed with Gaelic, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch and later French) became the language of administration from around the personal reign of James I and his son James II in place of Latin. Acts of Parliament were written in Scots.

    The decline of the written language is largely down to two factors - the reformation and the union of the crowns. Reformers used bibles in the English language and after the union of the crowns, the language of Acts of Parliament became markedly more anglicised until complete anglicisation on the accession of Charles I.

    The Scots language remained the spoken language of much of the peasentry after the 1707 union but along with Gaelic and old Norse (helped in its decline by James VI stripping Shetland and Orkney of their autonomy in 1605 in preperation for full politcial union of the British isles) has gradually declined with Scots now largely potrayed as the language of the uneducated and only respectfully used when it involves Burns.

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  5. Let me assure you that there mutterings in Orkney and Shetland (shall we say...), and that there is real fury in Caithness, where there certianly is signage and waht have you in Gaelic, even though it is not spoke there.

    I have nothing against Gaelic alongside English in Gaelic-speaking areas of Scotland, but not everywhere where someone around a fashionable Edinburgh or Glasgow dinner table thinks that they must speak it (wherever, exactly, it might be), even if they don't and never have done.

    Likewise, I have nothing against Welsh alongside English in Welsh-speaking areas of Wales, but not throughout the Principality.

    And, in principle, I'd have nothing against Irish alongside English in Irish-speaking areas of Northern Ireland. It's just that there aren't any.

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  6. I am better ... can I stand. Only in the north east though

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  7. I'd love to stand, too, but only in the North East. I don't understand why David thinks he has a divine right to be the candidate. There are thousands of us in the North East who support his ideas. He can't just impose himself on us. This is worse than the Labour Party. Surely this has to be more than just a vanity project. I want to believe, but David is turning into just another corrupt self-serving career politician.

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  8. If anyone can come up with an alternative to self-selection for an Independent candidate, then I'd be fascinated to hear it, if only to expand my mind.

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  9. But you're not really independent. You're looking for people who share your principles to stand on the same platform around the country. If it's a broad-based movement, then you need some way of deciding who the candidates should be. Why should it be you and not someone else?

    Why shouldn't it be me? What would it take to make you stand down as a candidate? Or is it all about your own ambition?

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  10. If I were overcome with personaal ambition, then I wouldn't be standing for the European Parliament.

    In the widely-circulated Statement of Principles, months in the making around the country (and beyond) and which (unless I am very much mistaken) none of you volunteer candidates has even seen, it is made very clear that, among many other things, we will indeed be Independents, bringing back politicians with minds of their own.

    Of course, I know what is going on here. Labour sees the possibility of candidates who would appeal to the one section of the electorate whom it had sincerely believed had absolutely nowhere else to go, and could therefore be ignored completely, when not being thoroughly abused.

    In response, on come the spoilers, demanding some unspecified selection procedure at enormous expense, thus bankrupting this whole project before it even starts. Well, you can forget that.

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  11. "If I were overcome with personaal ambition, then I wouldn't be standing for the European Parliament."

    MEPs earn £60,277 a year. Not bad, eh? No wonder David wants to stifle competition to be a candidate.

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  12. Ignore them, David. I very much doubt that they really are better candidates than you. Those of us who've known you for a long time were stunned when you didn't win a District Council seat. Just how the f**k good must the other candidates have been? You should have had a Portfolio four years ago, never mind anything else.

    But of course merit has nothing to do with these things. You've finally worked out, years after everyone else, that Labour was never going to give you anything remotely commensurate to your abilities, because you're a threat to their a cosy club for crooks and elderly, illiterate, peasant yes men. All on councillors' allowances, of course. I believe you know the County Councilor for Lanchester. He manages to be a crook and an elderly, illiterate peasant at the same time.

    But what took you so long? Why did you hang around for the best of years of you life waiting for a call that was never going to come? They didn't deserve you then, and you mustn't listen to them now. The idea that people with views like yours would rather vote for one of them just proves how thick they are. As some of us have been telling you for years. You're better than them.

    Vote David Lindsay!

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  13. I am confused ... you are going to be MP for North West Durham for a year and then stand as MEP. I dont think that the electorate would thank you for costing them a fortune in a by election. I also remember the last person to set up a new party and throw his dummy out of the pram when they wouldnt let him be leader/dictator. All you need is the perma-tan David and you could be twins (lets face it your views are almost as racist as Robert K-S and dont hide behind the Im mixed race argument - that doesnt exclude you from being racist!). Please carry on though David, I cant be the only one reduced to tears of laughter reading this blog (though keep the posts short - as you can see, no-one reads the long posts).

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  14. Well, plenty of people seem to have read this one!

    I don't think there's going to be a parliamentary election until 2009, anyway. There certainly doesn't need to be, politically speaking.

    But, in reply to James, the one thing that might just talk me out of standing for this, provided that I was absolutely satisfied with the alternative candidate (which I wouldn't be unless certain other, more publicity-shy but very good, people also were), would be the absolute guarantee - and I really do mean the absolute guarantee - of the NW Durham seat.

    I have to go and pretend to be a wage-slave again now. See you all in couple of hours. Have fun!

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  15. Wage slave? ... has someone actually employed you at last or do you mean the thing that Pauline from Job Club is making you do?”

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  16. You just want a guaranteed parliamentary seat... it's just about your own personal aggrandisement. You're worse than the people who hang around the corpse of the Labour Party waiting to be parachuted into a safe seat.

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  17. I'm Spartacus!

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  18. I want to stand for you in the South West. I agree with everything you say about everything except that I think Gibraltar should be part of Spain. Will that be OK, or will I have to split the anti-Common Fisheries Policy with your approved candidate?

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  19. I am pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker and pro-war. This means my agenda is 33% more positive than yours, and I will defeat your candidate in the East Midlands, unless you agree to go into coalition with me.

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  20. oops, I mean "split the anti-Common Fisheries policy vote"

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  21. Anonymous 1:56pm, David might not need to go out to work too often, but I somehow doubt that it has anything to do with a job club!

    Does he turn up there in his pin-striped suit that must be Jermyn St if not Saville Row? With his designer shirt and cufflinks, his tie and matching silk breast pocket handkerchief, his shiny black leather shoes and his gold watch? Or maybe he wears his white bow tie and his MA regalia? And imagine his CV, what would they say to him?

    All in all, David's tastes in booze are distinctly non-LCL and I bet it's a very long time since he last ate a fish finger or a baked bean, if ever. Like many people, my abiding image of him is wearing the finest dinner suit I've ever seen and smoking the most enormous Cuban cigar.

    But so what? The old Clause 4 was written by Sidney Webb, not exactly a miner. Unlike the outgoing MP for Sedgefield, David at least has any political opinions at all. And unlike most Labour toffs (Tony Benn, Michael Foot, that lot) his views are in tune with the working class more or less, instead of having read far too much Marx and Trotsky at university and never got over it.

    So give him a go, I say. He'd know how to behave when he got there, in order to get us what we want. And he can't be any worse that what we've already had to put up with.

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  22. Yes, I heard that David was going into ICT Consultancy.

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  23. My, you have all been busy this afternoon! As, indeed, have I, though not in anything like as interesting a way.

    Anyway, a few points:

    1. Ben: "There are thousands of us in the North East who support [my] ideas. He can't just impose himself on us."

    Well, of course there are, or else why stand? But I'm not "imposing" myself: people will be perfectly free to vote for a party or another Independent.

    Strictly within this context, I cannot see how there can be a candidate with a better claim: since I have done all the work - all of it - where this project is concerned, why shouldn't I be the candidate, especially as there is no party involved?

    Except, of course, that there is: we are dealing here with people who would be Labour MPs or MEPs if that party stood any chance of lasting another 10 years, which it doesn't. They think that their prior claim to a Labour nomination, based purely on organisational work within what is now the extremely eccentric little world of the Labour Party, constitutes a prior claim here. In other words, they have ever-so-slightly missed the point...

    2. Paul, this European Election is our chance of a breakthrough, but we would have been looking at MPs after that anyway, not least because none of the three existing parties will still be in operation as late as a 2013 General Election.

    But if I were already in the House of Commons before the 2009 European Elections, then that, too, would be a very good start. It would, I suppose, persuade me to let someone else (although I and others would be highly particular about who that was) put up here in those Elections.

    Yes, of course we want our people at Westminster eventually. Don't you?

    Oh, and anyone who opposes my becoming MP for NW Durham is actually siding with the BNP: Http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.com/2007/06/from-to-davidaslindsayhotmail.html

    3. Juan, we really can't consider anyone who does not support the Britishness of Gibraltar, very much a cause of the Left there. And if you don't, then you stand absolutely no chance of picking up the votes of the people who also happen to care most about the CFP. They are not exactly pro-Spanish, you know...

    4. Angela, you can't be pro-life, pro-family or pro-worker and support this war, as the pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker voters of the East Midlands or anywhere else would make perfectly clear to you on the doorstep and at the ballot box, not least when shown this little exchange, which of course makes it apparent that your candidacy is entirely defined by our candidate's.

    And even if you did split our vote there, you'd just let in the BNP this time round. Is that what you want?

    5. And To Whom It May Concern, the Statment of Principles, which is the whole point, has not been posted here. To receive it, you need to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com; otherwise, you actually cannot know whether or not this initiative is for you. I do, of course, because I wrote it.

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  24. Can it be an international movement? I am trying to prevent compulsory dual-language Gaelic-English roadsigns being put up around Sydney by this sinister organisation, and I would welcome your assistance. Maybe I could be a candidate under your banner in the Australian federal elections? I am opposed to most immigration and I love the Queen.

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  25. What David isn't saying is that, as a probable fourth place, he stands no realistic chance of election in the North East, just because there are only three seats here.

    But the Westminster constituencies where his vote is strongest will be where he concentrates on running parliamentary candidates after that, and several of them would stand very good chances. Meanwhile, with any luck, he'd already be MP for North West Durham.

    David is actually making quite a sacrifice by allowing someone more local to have the North West or the West Midlands in particular, because he is bound to get someone in there.

    That's also true of Scotland and Northern Ireland, but no one not Scottish or Northern Irish would have got in there anyway. Someone who is will, though.

    And it's perfectly possible to be an MP and an MEP at the same time. Ian Paisley did it for many years while also minister of a lrage church.

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  26. Would you stand aside if someone who anyone has actually heard of offered to stand?

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  27. Too many media outlets and others have already received what is also the text of this post for me to stand aside now. It couldn't be done.

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  28. Have any of these news outlets published it?

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  29. They don't need to. Not yet, anyway. They just need to know. And they do. In fact, several of them (and there are scores) are taking a VERY keen interest...

    The same is true of numerous campaigning organisations on about as broad a range of issues as you can think of.

    So much for my not being known: approach anyone whom you think might be interested either in reporting or in backing this project, and I think you'll find that they already know, from me.

    Any "I Agree With David Lindsay, And I'm Actually Running On A Document Which He Wrote, But I'm Not Him" candidate would just be laughed out.

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  30. "since I have done all the work - all of it - where this project is concerned, why shouldn't I be the candidate, especially as there is no party involved?"

    Are you saying that nobody is helping you with this? I thought you were building a movement. But now you say that you've done all the work. Where is your campaign team? Why should anyone take you seriously if not one single person is prepared to help out? Or are you overstating your contribution when you say you've done all the work

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  31. 'Any "I Agree With David Lindsay, And I'm Actually Running On A Document Which He Wrote, But I'm Not Him" candidate would just be laughed out.'

    But isn't that your plan for all the other UK regions? I think I may have spotted a flaw...

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  32. All right, Jim, "But I'm Standing Against Him". It's ludicrous: how could such a person possibly expect to be taken seriously?

    And Phil, I came up with the idea (it is connected to several others...), I wrote the first draft, I sent it out to all the right people, I made the changes on which they could all agree, and so on for quite a while. You can have a copy, if you email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. And so can anybody else. But it's a bit long to post here.

    I hate to put it as bluntly as this, but you're all just annoyed that you didn't think of this first.

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  33. I wish you were right, Anonymous. But the truth is that hardly anyone votes in European Elections, and he only has to get out the Catholic vote, which he'll easily do, to stand a good chance in PR.

    Add in disgruntled trade unionists, farmers and whoever else and he could easily beat the Lib Dems, who depend on extremely low turnouts and wouldn't otherwise exist.

    And European Elections are fought over enormous areas, so it really doesn't matter how he is regarded in his locality. Even there, all he's done is fall out with someone I like but most other people quietly despise, and who is on the way out anyway, more is the pity.

    It's masively easier than you'd think to become an MEP candidate, and anyway he'd have no trouble getting the nominations even if it was quite hard. Nor does it matter if he isn't well-known. Never mind candidates, how many sitting MEPs are well-known? The way he does things, he'd be one of the best-known, hated by some people, but unfortunately revered by more than enough to re-elect him time and time again.

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  34. P.S. And then there's the war of course. Anti-war and (unlike the Lib Dems) Eurosceptical is a hell of a combination for the next Euro Elelections. And anti-war, economically left-wing and socially illiberal gives me no pleasure to say it but describes a hell of a lot of people in the North East. He's nothing if not a self-publicist so they'll know all about him by the time of the Election. Take him seriously. Please.

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  35. Please do not swear on my blog.

    Anyway, to business. The Last Blairite is quite right that, with proper organisation and publicity (already well on the way), I could beat the Lib Dems in the North East; I should add that our candidate could beat the Lib Dems in every region, because, once you add in abstainers, almost nobody votes Lib Dem. As The Last Blairite rightly says, the Lib Dems would not exist at all if it were not for low turnouts.

    But, my word, what a bitter lot you are! You thought that if, as Ben said, you hung around the corpse of the Labour Party for long enough, then you would eventually be rewarded with safe seats.

    But now that corpse has actually started to decompose, with Gordon Brown more willing to offer a post to Paddy Ashdown and actually give one to Digby Jones than to consider anyone who has come up through what little remains of the Labour Party. Even when Ashdown turned him down, his Plan B was to appoint Shaun Woodward, and he is even doing it for free because he doesn't need the money!

    What is more, someone has now come up with the ruse of giving a voice at the ballot box, not to the sectarian Left, not to the imaginary "centre ground" dreamt up around Islington dinner tables by the two front benches and the BBC, but to the people whom you really did think simply had to vote Labour no matter what, and who are in fact the reason why there are (or were) safe Labour seats into which you might have been parachuted.

    Well, you're not having that. But you have no idea what to do about it. Should you rubbish the whole project, and thus vilify the views and values of most of such voters as you still have (although it was in traditional Labour seats that turnout sometimes fell as low as one third in 2005)? Or should you try and pull rank on the grounds that you would have been owed a Labour seat this time, since you've done so much for the Labour Party? Well, this isn't the Labour Party. Not least, what comes out of this will actually exist 10 years from now, whereas you now seem to know as well as I do that the Labour Party simply won't.

    It seems that you are trying to do both. Which makes you look very, very silly. As, of course, you are. But you are also very, very sad.

    And yes, The Last Blairite, my antagonist to whom you refer is of course a textbook case of this, with all the petulance, the bullying and the trying-to-convince-oneself superciliousness that they so characteristically exhibit, including here.

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  36. Well I'm not David Lindsay for a start! Is this 'I'm David Lindsay and so is my wife'?

    You've missed the point. Who cares what people think of him in Lanchester? They don't care in Berwick. They don't care in Middlesbrough. Outside Labour we don't even care in Consett.

    He's bound to get an interview in the Northern Cross (handed out FREE at the back of Catholic churches), and probably in the Universe, the Catholic Times and the Catholic Herald as well. All he has to do is state his views and yes, Catholics will vote for, including many who wouldn't have voted at all otherwise. And this is a PR election.

    Add in the unions. Add in the countryside lot. Add in the anti-war lot, which is most people after all. Add in all sorts of people. Plus the Catholic Herald has close link to the Telegraph and the Spectator. The prediction that he could beat the Europhile, socially liberal Lib Dems is perfectly accurate.

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  37. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win." I'll raise a glass to the health of whoever knows who said that without looking it up (for I am David Lindsay, and can tell these things).

    Anyway, Consett Avenger, way ahead of you. Way, way, way ahead of you... Some publicity you just can't buy.

    Even quite liberal Anglican newspapers, never mind really quite conseravtive Catholic ones such as you list, published articles in the run-up to the last General Election with titles like "Sleep-Walking Into Voting Lib Dem". If mainstream opinion in this country had any idea what their real policies were, they the Lib Dems would be finished. But it's not as if they make any sort of secret of their policies, it's just that those policies are never reported. Well, I for one intend to tell people all about them.

    And I still want to know what those "lies" were. Does anybody know how I could allow non-Blogger users to comment here without allowing anonymous comments?

    Forty comemnts on this post, eh? Because nobody reads this blog and nobody cares about me or my causes. Of course.

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  38. How many people have emailed you asking for the material? Go on, do tell.

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  39. As I said, way, way, way ahead of you... And not just on the Catholic side, either: this really is shaping up to be a very broadly-based coalition indeed, of all those whom the unpopular consensus has dispossed. An enormous number of people and, yes, far more than the mere 16% or so of eligible voters who vote Lib Dem even at General Elections.

    Even accepting the strange theory that I am also Consett Avenger and The Last Blairite, which I am not, that still leaves over half the total number of comments here.

    And I see that we are back to the always amsuing comments from people saying that no one is reading this blog, even though they themselves obviously are, for a start. If no one else is reading it, then why are they commenting on it?

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  40. I'm reading it.

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  41. I'm reading it.

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  42. I'm reading it.

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  43. I'm reading it.

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  44. I'm reading it.

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  45. I'm reading it.

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  46. I'm reading it.

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  47. I'm reading it.

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  48. I'm reading it.

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  49. I'm reading it, and I can spell my own name.

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  50. I'm reading it.

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  51. Lots, Anonymous 5:04pm. With it all being by email, I don't really count, and that's probably just as well. Thinking about it, it's certainly more than 50, which is not bad for under a week. And, after all, we only need 11.

    I would post it here, but it is about 1500 words, and it really is first supposed to see the light of day over the names of the candidates.

    Several big things will be happening in the right, quite discreet but beautifully well-placed, corners of the forest over the next week or so, so do ask me again next Friday.

    Mind you, I bet I still won't have an exact figure. I'll probably just say "lots and lots". Not, as I said, that we actually need "lots and lots".

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  52. We're reading it.

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  53. I'm not David Lindsay and neither is my wife.

    Anonymous 4:57, you're the one who's dreaming. We veteran Lindsay-watchers know that he has close ties to the Catholic press among other sections of the media. All he has to do is send a letter to the Catholic Herald, the Catholic Times and the Universe for publication the weekend before the election. By the time that any balance could be introduced, the election would have happened.

    As for diocesan freebies, they are only published once a month, usually at the start of the month. So people would pick them up on the Sunday before an election. The election would be more than three weeks gone before they read a letter stating any contrary view.

    And anyway, for a Catholic paper, what contrary view? In favour of abortion? In favour of the Iraq War? It just wouldn't be printed. And it wouldn't make any differenve even if was printed, because the election would already have happened.

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  54. Sixty comments? Gosh!

    The Last Blairite, can I hire you as my press officer? You are supposed to be on the other side, you know!

    The Catholic Church is an important strand in the coalition on which the Labour great and good have depended while despsing the people in question, but a substantial section of Her flock, especially in England and perhaps also in Wales (I don't know) has never been Labour, fearing that the Labour Party was full of Communist agents who would emerge in the event of a Labour victory.

    By contrast, those Catholics who did vote labour did so precisely in order to prevent a Marxist revolution in this, one of the two countries Marx thought most likely to have one (the other was Germany), by allevaiting the social and economic problems that might have given rise to such a revolution, as enjoined by Catholic Teaching.

    This split mirrored, and considerably overlapped with, the split between working-class Tories and Labour's working-class core vote, above all as organised in, through and as the unions.

    But in both cases, the differences of opinion were quite slight, the split being about strategy. Both sides were, and are, in favour of an economically Keynsian and Beveridgite, morally and socially conservative, patriotic approach.

    As, indeed, were and are a number of other categories of people. For example, farm subsidies are classically Keynsian and Beveridgite, while those to whom they are paid are characteristically conservative in moral and social terms, and characteristically patriotic.

    Yet that hugely popular position is no longer represented by any party, with the result that the parties themselves are at death's door, yet still enjoy a de facto monopoly on access to the political process.

    Our 12 Independent candidacies will offer the electorate the opportunity to begin the process of replacing this bankrupt cartel, a process which will include the replacement of the existing parties with those (probably more like tendencies of the Whig/Tory variety, at least until we're all long dead) which actually speak for the British People.

    For ourselves, dare we take this risk? Well, for those who went before us and those who will come after us, how dare we not take it! How about you?

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  55. I've just been talking to a very well-informed Lanchester person who says that it was a very strong field for District Councillor there, and that David probably only put up to save his Parish Council seat. Apparently if you stand for both on the same day, you are guaranteed the Parish even if you don't get the District. Never fails, I'm told.

    David not only kept his Parish seat with no party or funds, he got more votes than the Labour man who had spent 4 years going around saying that David was going to lose his seat. Labour hadn't dare run that man for the District, as they did in 2003, because they didn't want to see him get fewer votes than David for that as well. Or so I am very reliably informed.

    But Euro Elections are PR. A whole different ball game. And about time too. The idea of David as nothing more than a Parish Councillor is completely ridiculous. Just look at the County Councillor in Lanchester, FFS!

    I recently heard a very senior local Labour figure describe David's separation from "the Party" as "a temporary measure". Not if David has any sense it isn't. And he does have. After all, what did it ever do for him? He'll get my vote.

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  56. is that you David? Consett Avenger seems remarkably well-informed about all things to do with David Lindsay?

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  57. Rather better than I am, in fact: I certainly didn't know a lot of this.

    But I do now...

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  58. If you mean that leading Labour types keep asking for em to come back, well of course I knew THAT: they do it to my face. But go back to what? There's next to nothing of it left, and there'll be nothing at all before long. At my age, I have to taker the long view.

    If you would rather vote for the anti-life, anti-family, pro-war and now basically anti-worker Labour Party as an expression of Catholc principles, then that is a matter for you. But you must be mad rather than bad, and I don't honestly think that you'll do it once you are in a polling booth.

    If you would rather vote for the the pro-war, anti-worker, and (contrary to what is often assumed on no evidence whatever) anti-life and anti-family Conservative Party as an expression of Catholic principles, then that is a matter for you. But just look at their legislative record from the 1980s and early 1990s. And just consider that one of this country's leading pro-life and pro-family campaigners, of whom you would certainly have heard and whom I had always assumed to be at least broadly a Tory, told me only a few days ago that she "spent 18 years campaigning against them".

    Or if you would rather vote for the anti-life, anti-family, anti-worker Lib Dems, opportunistically against the war this time round but previously (and in the future) enthusiastic cheerleaders for the neocon-Wahhabi war machine, as an expression of Catholic principles, then that is also a matter for you. But in that case, you are really are not mad, but very, very bad indeed.

    Meanwhile, 12 of us, including em in the North East, will be beginning the long-overdue process of giving not just Catholics, but everyone, the option of voting for morally and intellectually serious candidates, leading to tendencies, perhaps leading to parties many years hence: pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker, and anti-war.

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  59. If you are an example of the "morally and intellectually serious candidates" then I will abstain from voting for you, as will others. If you do poll votes it wont be from anyone who knows you but hey ho, if it is giving you something to do.

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  60. And just consider that one of this country's leading pro-life and pro-family campaigners, of whom you would certainly have heard and whom I had always assumed to be at least broadly a Tory, told me only a few days ago that she "spent 18 years campaigning against them".

    David Lindsay in "massive, sustained misplaced assumptions about the way other people's political views work" shock!

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  61. Just booked onto a radio station in the West Midlands for about a fortnight's time. They read all about it here, to my astonishment. Any more offers?

    Whoever the last comment was from, I'm not stopping you from putting up yourself. Although you would then have to tell people who you were. But be warned: although I'd just ignore you, your constant "Don't Vote For David Lindsay" would only serve to raise my profile. And you don't appear to have anything else to say.

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  62. Anonymous 10:10, if you met her you'd think that she was, shall we say, a cultural Tory. Of course, I knew that she'd been very actively opposed to the anti-life and anti-family policies of the Thatcher and Major years, but I honestly hadn't realised that she was quite as vehement in her disdain for that party. She doesn't think much of Labour either, but only because "it used to be based on Methodism" (she's a Catholic), and now it isn't.

    All in all, an insight into just how far this movement could reach, deep into the Home Counties upper middle class. Among many, many other places, of course. For this is a Keynsian, Beveridgite, morally and socially conservative, patriotic country, the people of which, in all parts and from all classes, deserve candidates in that vein for whom to vote.

    And now, they are going to get such candidates.

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  63. Can we make it to 100?

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  64. I have had to delete several comments, one because it was viciously defamatory (and will be pursued further), and several because someone had managed to gain access to my Blogger account (heaven knows how).

    Anyway, I've changed my password, and the fact that anyone capable of finding it out went to the trouble of doing so, like the fact that anyone bothered to write the viciously defamatory comment, speaks volumes. Of course, those would no doubt be the same people who claim that I'm an irrelevance and that no one reads this blog.

    And, as you can see, I have now enable comment moderation. I don't really have the time for it, but it can't be helped.

    Anyway, I would like to answer one comment that I've had to delete for other reasons. I have never said that Catholics should vote for me because I am a Catholic. Catholic Social Teaching and Distributism played a key role in making me a Catholic in the first place, and I adhere to them. (Indeed, what I now know to be Catholic Social Teaching and Distributism played a key role in making me a member of the Labour Party, but I only plead that I was a simple schoolboy at the time.)

    I also submit, and am prepared to argue if anyone seriously disagrees (although I can't see that, I have to say), that none of the three parties now has either a programme or, insofar as they have any underlyling ideology, an underlying ideology in accordance with those principles.

    This is not to say that there are not still people in them whose views so accord, but you'd have to take that up with them, as I find their position utterly baffling, however well I might get on with a lot of them personally.

    But in several parts of Europe, that tradition is reasserting itself, with pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker, anti-war movements and candidates beginning to emerge. You don't have to be a Catholic to join or to support such a movement, and you certainly don't have to be a Catholic to be or to vote for such a candidate. (A Catholic political movement as such, although such things are quite common internationally, would not get anywhere electorally anyway.)

    But, as it happens, I do want to be (indeed, I am going to be) such a candidate. You don't have to like me personally; you just have to agree with me politically.

    And I neither could, nor would I want to be able to, stop anyone else from putting up. But those who share my pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker, anti-war views should be aware that they would be splitting that vote by standing against me, because I am certainly going to stand.

    They need to ask themselves whether the continued non-representation of our people would be a price worth paying merely to keep out someone with whom they agree politically, but with whom they would prefer not to have dinner.

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