Bred For This?

There has been some interesting talk among the right sort of people on Twitter over the last couple of days.

First, there is the sense that those of you with nine votes for the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party ought to cast one of them for Stephen Guy of the Durham Miners' Association, one for Ann Black, and the rest for seven of your choice from among the #JC9. That would be a clean sweep for supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, but not for largely young, Southern and middle-class Momentum, which is part of the movement, but which is not the whole of it.

Secondly, there is the sense that the next Leader of the Labour Party ought to be Richard Burgon, whose journey from a Leeds comprehensive school, via a Sixth Form college, Cambridge, and qualification and practice as a solicitor, to a seat in Parliament and to the Shadow Cabinet, is the kind of story of comprehensive school success that Labour needs to tell.

Thirdly, there is the sense that the legendary Liverpool trade unionist, justice campaigner and peace campaigner, Audrey White, who was once played on film by Glenda Jackson, ought to take over either as the MP for the great Bob Parry's old seat of Liverpool Riverside in place of Louise Ellman, or as the MP for Liverpool Wavertree in place of Luciana Berger.

And fourthly, there is the sense that something must be done about Jess Phillips. Specifically, only Roy Jenkins has ever been an MP for all three of Britain's largest cities of London, Birmingham and Glasgow. Much of his Stechford constituency is now in Yardley, where Phillips is the MP. But Jenkins did eventually lose his Glasgow seat to George Galloway, who has now been both a London and a Glasgow MP, as well as a Bradford one.

With its close ties both to Ireland, and to the Islamic world in general and Pakistan in particular, Birmingham is a city made for Galloway. He needs to be the next MP for Yardley. He needs to defeat Phillips in order to hold the balance of power in critical support of Corbyn and against what will still be the largely Blairite Parliamentary Labour Party.

Not that even he would be able to do that on his own, of course. As Twitter users will have seen, "The four local champions of @TAs_Durham are @davidaslindsay, his two Campaign Patrons (Alex Watson and Davey Ayre), and @OwenTemple2. @LauraPidcockMP's Political Advisor is @MrBenSellers, whose political advice has cost 472 TAs 23% of their income."

And, "Tell a room full of ordinary voters that they were about to meet two people one of whom was an MP. Bring in @LauraPidcockMP and David Lindsay and see which one they all assumed that it was. It's obvious. It's been obvious for nearly 20 years in David's case. He was bred for this."

Gosh. Well, brothers and sisters, on that note, I need £10,000 in order to stand for Parliament with any chance of winning. My crowdfunding page has been taken down without my knowledge or consent. But you can still email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com instead, and that address accepts PayPal.