Turnips

Saying "Halloween Eve" is like saying "Christmas Eve Eve", and the fact that I have to point this out fills me with a despair for which there are no words.

"Turnips!" to the whole thing, say I. Pumpkins? Pumpkins? We'll be keeping Thanksgiving next. 

As well we should, to give thanks for the fact that the Puritans left England. Have the kiddies carve little Puritans' heads and make little hats for them. 

But do not carve those heads out of pumpkins. Carve them out of turnips.

Schools or Potholes?

No such question presents itself to Durham County Council.

You can grow potatoes in the potholes here, but the pay of 472 Teaching Assistants has still been cut by 23 per cent.

Cut, lest we forget, because they took the political advice of the man whom the Member of Parliament for North West Durham has appointed as her Political Advisor.

Budgeting For Losses

Of course the Budget was aimed at a General Election in April or early May. 

But giving half of the tax cuts to the richest 10 per cent of households amounts to a core vote strategy on the part of the Conservative Party. 

Most of those voters live in constituencies that that party not only holds already, but held throughout the Blair years.

Is it really that worried about losing them now? Apparently so.

No Time To Hedge Our Bets

If I were a County Durham MP, then I would board a plane to Abu Dhabi, unannounced, with my smartphone in my hand. And I would tweet immediately before landing that I would not be leaving without Matthew Hedges.

Still The Land of Parrots

First, Bernie Sanders would have won.

And now, Lula would have won.

The Right Line

By all means reopen the Oxford to Cambridge railway. Why was it ever closed?

But the vitally necessary new housing should be along that, not along a new road.

Greening Her Path

Justine Greening is now a declared candidate for the Conservative Leadership. She might very well get it. 

The Right has this delusion that it is the soul of the Conservative Party, but in fact it is barely even a tolerated stepchild, or ever has been.

Margaret Thatcher promoted Ken Clarke and John Gummer over and over again. That Michael Heseltine was able to walk out of her Cabinet indicated that she had put him in it. And so on. 

By the time that she went, then the most right-wing candidate to succeed her was John Major. Fast forward 26 years, and Theresa May was made Leader without even so much as a contest. 

Heaven knows that I would not vote for Justine Greening. But she is a perfectly realistic candidate for Leader of the Conservative Party. 

Whereas no one from the Right is. By definition.

On The Money

If Philip Hammond announces one extra penny for anything other than wars (not the people who fight them; I shall come back to that one over the next fortnight), then remember that that would not have happened if Jeremy Corbyn had not been the Leader of the Opposition, nor if anyone other than John McDonnell had been the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Terminal Decline

"I can carry on as Prime Minister, and you can have whoever you like to lead your precious party!" 

With that line did first Margaret Thatcher and then Tony Blair indicate to even the stanchest supporters that the old dear had finally lost it and simply had to be removed.

By all accounts, Angela Merkel has this morning entered the same sorry state.

Sit in the House of Commons, or the Bundestag, or the United States Congress, for as long as people are still prepared to elect you to it.

But there is a reason why Presidents of the United States are not permitted to serve more than two terms. That is as much for their own good as for everybody else's.

Public Interest

Peter Hain does have questions to answer.

Philip Green has more.

But Peter Hain does have them.

Untagged By Adulthood

While the entire Parliamentary Labour Party is going to vote against whatever Theresa May brings back from Brussels, certain people who are struggling to adjust to puberty are losing their minds because 50 Conservative MPs have apparently adopted an hashtag.

Nothing else. Just a hashtag. That in itself is student politics, and not even very good student politics. But 50 Conservative MPs is negligible. It is barely one in six, and even that will go down once the chips have done so.

Those MPs will deserve to be treated with absolutely no seriousness whatever until they do in fact stage their challenge to May's Leadership. But they are never going to do that, so they are never going to deserve to be treated with any seriousness whatever.

Having seen the nation and the world laugh out the idea of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, their latest chitter-chatter is of David Davis, the man who purportedly oversaw what little Brexit negotiations there ever were. Student politics, and not even very good student politics. A hashtag. Nothing else. Just a hashtag. I ask you.

Green Benches

I am still not a fan of #MeToo.

But there is nothing higher in the Rule of Law then the High Court of Parliament, to the proper work of which parliamentary privilege is integral and indispensable.

This would have been better coming from the House of Commons than from the House of Lords, but here we are. What an old trouper is Peter Hain. Jess who?

Philip Green will probably lose his knighthood. But he should have done that because of the BHS pension plunder. Indeed, he should never have been awarded it, such was his and his wife's tax-dodging.

As I said, I am still not a fan of #MeToo.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

The Rebel Yell Is Not Even A Whimper

I do not always agree with Paul Mason, but he was right last night on Question Time.

The likes of Andrea Jenkyns will deserve to be taken with the slightest seriousness when they stage their Leadership challenge to Theresa May.

So, that'll be never, then.

No Time To Be Deterred

Question Time from Barrow-in-Furness last night, and notice that the “jobs” argument is now the only one advanced in support of nuclear weapons in general or Trident in particular.

It would fascinating to hear the reaction if Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell or anyone else proposed spending quite that much money on employing quite that few people. And for what? 10,000 households in Barrow are using foodbanks. It is not a prosperous town.

In no serious country is the science-fictional question “Would you press the button?” ever asked. No one would ever press the button, and every functioning adult knows it. It is true that the atom bomb has been used, a long time ago. But nuclear weapons such as exist today never have been. By anyone.

And look at the people who have had them, or who still do have them. Stalin never launched a nuclear attack. Stalin. Nor did Chairman Mao. Theresa May is many things, but she is no Chairman Mao. It is all a bluff. Just get rid of these wretched things.

We need the cancellation of Trident in favour of rebuilding the conventional Armed Forces, in favour of care for veterans, in favour of flood defences, and in favour of an “all of the above” energy policy based around civil nuclear power and around this country’s vast reserves of coal, with the commanding heights in reformed public ownership, with no need for fracking even in its own terms, and with the requirement of the approval of the House of Commons before energy or water prices could be increased.

In the case of Trident, we could pay the affected shipyard workers quite eye-watering sums in compensation, and still save amounts that there were scarcely the adjectives to describe. That might even do their towns some good, since Trident has very visibly never done so.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Armed Guard

Out comes Johnny Mercer with the "someone else will" line about arming Saudi Arabia, a country that is in fact at war with us, right here on our streets. That cannot be said of Iran, for all its many faults. Then again, we rightly do not arm Iran.

Now, we should really go easy on Johnny Mercer himself. He probably cannot read (I mean that in absolute seriousness; listen to him speak), but certain sections of both main parties are suckers for a public school accent and for pictures of a young man in uniform. It is not his fault. He is being played, like some pretty boy pop star.

But the same cannot be said of certain other people, and they have been used to their own way for an awfully long time. They assume that there will never be an alternative to their venal approach. Well, there is now.

We need the renationalisation of BAE Systems as the monopoly supplier to our own Armed Forces, with a ban on all sale of arms abroad, and with a comprehensive programme of diversification in order to preserve the skills that were currently employed in the arms industry.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

The Company They Keep

I am not a member of the same political party as this man. Are you? Is any other candidate at North West Durham? 

My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Inadvisable

In railing against single-payer healthcare, the White House Council of Economic Advisers approvingly quotes Margaret Thatcher. Who presided over a system of single-payer healthcare.

From its creation in 1948, there was no attempt to subvert that system until 1997, when control of it passed to Tony Blair, to the erstwhile Trotskyist bookseller Alan Milburn, and to the sometime Communist Party parliamentary candidate Paul Corrigan.

Presumably, all three of those would be welcome additions to the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Although massively unpopular in itself, that subversion remained unchallenged until the emergence of Jeremy Corbyn. But his very presence has now shifted the debate dramatically back in line with public opinion.

Nevertheless, numerous MPs of all parties remain committed to the privatisation of the NHS, and the next General Election will leave many of those MPs in place.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

With Confidence

What if enough Conservative MPs did force a vote of no confidence in Theresa May's Leadership? She would win it by a mile. And then, what? 

There will be a Leadership challenge to May when there is a new "centrist" party of the Labour MPs who are always threatening to break away and set it up.

In a word, never.

All mouth, the lot of them. Not that there are very many Conservative critics of the present Prime Minister, anyway.

The realisation is dawning on even the dimmest-witted that the only Prime Minister who would ever deliver Brexit would be Jeremy Corbyn.

That would not be without rancour within his own party, but another hung Parliament is coming, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it.

My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Not On My Watch

Of course the Palestinian leaders, both in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, are an enormous part of the problem.

Anyone who knew the first thing about the Palestinian cause could have told Human Rights Watch that for nothing. I mean, those leaders have hardly proved part of the solution, have they? Come on.

If you want to hear a lot more of this, then another hung Parliament is coming, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it.

My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

A Suspicious Package

Wall-to-wall coverage of fake bombs that did not go off in America, and which had nothing to do with Britain.

But not a peep about real bombs that are going off all the time in Yemen, and which are being supplied by Britain.

"If we didn't, then someone else would" is not an argument. Someone else supplies heroin, but that would not be my excuse or yours for doing so.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

"What About Iran?"

Britain does not arm Iran.

Nor is Iran a threat to Britain. It has possibly had some role in killing British troops in Iraq, but only because we had been stupid enough to send them there in the first place.

But Britain does arm Saudi Arabia.

And Saudi Arabia is the global nerve centre of Islamist terrorism. Including on the streets of Britain. We supply the arms that are used against us, right here on our own soil.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

I Am A Pro-Business Candidate

Every evening, I raise a glass to Laura Pidcock's baby son, my next ex-wife but two, born with a full set of teeth, Alvin Simon Theodore Pidcockebede. In the meantime, though, I have to get on with removing his mother from Parliament, where her presence used to be a national embarrassment, but where her absence is now a national scandal. Not that I am standing against her, as such. I do not stand against people. I stand for things. Specifically, I am a pro-business candidate.

For example, I am now working with all of the non-Labour members of Durham County Council and with the trade unions, to bring Volkswagen's production for the British market to County Durham after, or even before, Brexit. I am more than open to further suggestions along similar lines. Among many other things, this project will guarantee the financial future of the Durham Miners' Gala and of the Durham Miners' Hall. The absence of the County Council Labour Group is that Group’s own sorry fault. I unreservedly condemn the decision of that Group to award to the Kier Group, with its history of blacklisting, the contract to build the new headquarters of Durham County Council.

I am pro-business because I am firmly a man of the Left. I believe in economic equality and in international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends. In the struggle for economic equality, the leading role belongs to the working class, and the leading role within the working class belongs to the trade union and co-operative movements. In the struggle for international peace, the leading role belongs to the working class and to the youth.

Each of those struggles has always been fundamental to the other, and it always will be. The anti-racist and anti-imperialist struggles have always been fundamental to each and both of them, and they always will be. All other identity issues are subordinate within this, if they can be, or they are precluded by it, if they cannot be. Yes, I am firmly a man of the Left.

I am not, however, a Marxist, in the straightforward sense that I do not believe in dialectical materialism. Marxism asks many of the right questions, but it almost always gives the wrong answers, at least in practice. This is not about any body count. Everyone has body counts, and Marx never prescribed any specific form of government. Rather, this is about a philosophical critique that predates any attempt at a Marxian revolution. Marxism's sense of its own inevitability is particularly and thoroughly pernicious. Our gains have not been inevitable. We had to fight to make them, and we have to fight to keep them. I can and do work with Marxists. But I am not one of them. As they would be the first to tell you.

Therefore, I rejoiced at the emergence of Jeremy Corbyn as a serious candidate for the Leadership of the Labour Party in 2015, ending a 21-year period during which Britain had had no political debate as such. Both economic policy and foreign policy had been off the agenda, and that despite the widespread unpopularity of the catastrophic economic and foreign policies that had been pursued as if they had been self-evident.

I have now been out of the Labour Party far longer than I was ever in it, and I have profound differences with Corbyn. But he has reopened the space for those of us who stand in the pro-business tradition of the planned economy that came down from the ultraconservative Colbert through the Liberal Keynes to the Attlee Government, and for those of us who stand in the pro-business tradition of the Welfare State that came down from the ultraconservative Bismarck though the Liberal Beveridge to the Attlee Government, in both cases holding sway in Britain until the Callaghan Government's turn to monetarism in 1977, the year of my birth.

That tradition looks critically but clearly to the domestic achievements of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, placing it within the pro-business tradition of the Hamiltonian American System, as expanded by the pro-business American School that between the 1860s and the 1970s worked to make America the world's largest economy, with the world's highest standard of living.

That is a System and School of the strict division between investment banking and retail banking, and of large amounts of federal credit (in Britain, central government credit), at low interest rates and over a long term, to build great national projects, notably enormous expansions in infrastructure, which then pay for themselves many times over. America urgently needs all of that, and so does Britain.

Like America, Britain urgently needs industrial protection through tariffs or subsidies; I prefer the latter, where possible. Like America, Britain urgently needs targeted government investment to improve infrastructure on a colossal scale. And like America, Britain urgently needs a National Bank that promotes the growth of productive enterprises rather than speculation. Brexit offers Britain these opportunities at last, as does Modern Monetary Theory.

There must be co-operation with the BRICS countries, and integration into the Belt and Road Initiative. The countries that dominated the nineteenth century cannot cling either to each other, or to the country that dominated the twentieth century, in the hope that that will make the twenty-first century go away. We need to get on the train, or we can expect to be run over by it.

Economic growth must deliver high wages, with absolute priority given to industrial and agricultural protection over finance capital, and with the protection of the Welfare State and other public services. Our response to climate change must not be our retreat from human progress. There must be real mass education, providing the general population with access to the best that has been known and thought. And so on.

If Laura Pidcock has any view on any of this, then I for one would be fascinated to hear it. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Pidcocks To That

Apologise to Laura Pidcock? I would rather die. For one thing, I made only the perfectly factual statement that MPs did not get maternity leave, and could not possibly do so, since that would leave their seats without MPs. No one is forced to stand for Parliament, and no one is forced to stay there.

If her staff are still replying to emails and chasing up casework, then good for them. But North West Durham has no representation within the parliamentary process during this, the biggest political crisis in Britain since the War. That is point here. Apologise? You must be out of your mind to ask.

Characteristically, she has sent in Ben Sellout to bat for her on Twitter. His political advice had already cost 472 Teaching Assistants 23 per cent of their pay when she appointed him as her Political Advisor. He has this sense of himself as an intimidating figure, The Enforcer. He is exactly as ridiculous as that sounds, and her appointment of him is a significant reason why she is not a fit and proper person to be a Member of Parliament.

The main such reason, however, may be read here. No, it is not by her. No, it barely refers to her, and it never mentions her by name. But ask yourself which of the things set out in it she has done, since she has already had ample time in which to do at least some of them. Ask yourself which of the things set out in it she is ever going to do. Ask yourself how much of it she could have written. Ask yourself how much of it she could have read.

Try and imagine that she might ever have heard of the Belt and Road Initiative, or Glass-Steagall, or Tynwald, or the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, or the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, or the High Court of Justiciary of Scotland, or the relationship between space exploration and fusion power, or the Ulster Institute for Social Research, or the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act, or Dorje Shugden, or Altaf Hussein, or ... well, it is a very long list.

You can't imagine it, can you? You just can't. Apologise to Laura Pidcock, indeed! On the contrary, my crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Built On Sand

And so they discover that Saudi Arabia might not be very nice. Don't expect this to last, though. But we were saying it before they ever started, and we will be saying it long after they have stopped.

Not very long ago, three figures' worth of anti-Corbyn Labour MPs abstained rather than vote against arms sales to Saudi Arabia. They are still there. Most of them will still be there after the next General Election. And that is before mentioning the other side.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

When the anti-Corbyn wing of the Labour Party is not abstaining rather than vote against arms sales to Saudi Arabia, then it is systematically paying women less than men in Glasgow (a policy that is now being continued by the SNP), it is cutting the pay of 472 Teaching Assistants by 23 per cent in County Durham, and it is attempting to demolish Tottenham like Sophiatown of old, presumably in order to build a Triomf over its ruins.

The man whose political advice cost the 472 Teaching Assistants 23 per cent of their pay is now the Political Advisor to the Member of Parliament for North West Durham, who is herself absent without leave during the biggest political crisis since the War. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Oh, Put It Away

Pornography on buses and trains? Is that a thing now? Oh, well, that's 40 years of the "free" market for you. But the technology exists to require age verification, so the technology exists to block those sites altogether. From the entire country. By law.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

This battle must not, however, become mixed up with the collapsing #MeToo phenomenon. One of the charges against Harvey Weinstein himself has been dropped, with such inevitable publicity that it is effectively impossible to expect the unanimous verdict of guilty that California would still require for conviction of the remaining charges.

While he is back in England, Cristiano Ronaldo ought to issue libel writs against Kathryn Mayorga and every London outlet that had published her claims. That would make him a lot more than she claims that he paid her. Brett Kavanaugh should also consider the "sue you in England" tactic.

Ah, yes. Brett Kavanaugh. The only effect of #MeToo has been to confirm to the Supreme Court a man who on any one or more of torture, Guantánamo Bay, mass surveillance, workers' rights, consumer protection, environmental responsibility, treaties with Native Americans, healthcare for people with pre-existing conditions (that is, people like me), the President's supposed immunity from indictment, and the President's supposed power to pardon himself, could easily have been blocked by enough Republicans and all Democrats, plus Bernie Sanders and Angus King.

But instead, the useless Democratic Party made it about a #MeToo and #IBelieveHer story that it was impossible to prove, so he was confirmed, even complete with the vote of one Democrat. I hope that that party is exactly as proud as it ought to be of this significant addition to its long history of uselessness and worse on the issues of torture, Guantánamo Bay, mass surveillance, workers' rights, consumer protection, environmental responsibility, treaties with Native Americans, healthcare for people with pre-existing conditions, and checks on Presidential power.

#StandUp4Brexit?

A hashtag? Not merely in support, but as the thing itself? That is student politics, and not even very good student politics. By, apparently, 40 Conservative MPs, meaning that the figure will be lower when the chips are down. Forty. Out of 316. About one in eight. 

276 Conservative MPs, seven out of eight of them, will therefore vote in favour of whatever Theresa May had brought back. And that is on the best estimates of the fantasists who believe that the Conservatives are the party of Leave.

Meanwhile, the entire Parliamentary Labour Party will vote against any Chequers-based deal. But then, of the five people who have contested Labour Leadership Elections since 2015, by far the most Eurosceptical has won both of them, including the 2016 one that was held after the referendum and which was very much fought on this issue.

Also after the referendum, the Conservative Party gave its Leadership to Theresa May without a contest. All five people who have contested Labour Leadership Elections since 2015 have been more Eurosceptical than Theresa May, and all four of them who are still in the House of Commons will vote against her deal. Whereas no more than 40 Conservative MPs, and probably not even that many, will do so. 

After all, why would the rest? Not only will they agree with it, but they are justifiably scared out of their wits of losing their seats to the Liberal Democrats in the Remain heartlands for which they sit. Ask them. They will tell you. They will tell you in no uncertain terms. 

There are those who insist, increasingly hysterically, that the referendum was a Southern and right-wing victory. But even if they are right, then no one believes them, and they never will. Except perhaps for a few academics writing for each other, but possibly not even then, everyone already remembers it as the revenge of the areas that had been punished by Thatcherism, and everyone is always going to remember it like that.

Whether or not the North and the Left won the referendum strictly in itself (and we undeniably cast the decisive votes), then we have won everything to do with it hands down. The new Britain will have to suit us, "because we voted for Brexit." Jolly good. So long as we hold our nerve.

Everyone thinks that the South voted Remain. And by electing the seven eighths pro-Chequers Conservative Party, it did. That party's only fear is that the South will vote even more Remain next time, by voting for the Lib Dems, if what it had been given by then had not been Remain enough for it. 

Meanwhile, all Labour MPs are going to vote against anything that had come out of Chequers, "because we voted for Brexit." And because Jeremy Corbyn is more Eurosceptical then anyone whom he has ever beaten for Labour Leader, while all of those are more Eurosceptical than Theresa May. 

Theresa May, whom the seven eighths pro-Chequers Conservative Party, the party of the places that would go Lib Dem if there were ever anything like a real Brexit, made its Leader by acclaim, and retains as its Leader, unchallenged.

From Here To Maternity?

There is no such thing as maternity leave for Members of Parliament. Look it up. It does not exist. How could it? Who would be the MP for that seat during that leave?

Therefore, the MP for North West Durham is not "on maternity leave". She has simply taken herself off, on full pay, until she feels like coming back.

Since MPs are strictly and rightly forbidden to act on behalf of each others' constituents, the people of North West Durham are without parliamentary representation until further notice.

That would be bad enough under any circumstances. But during Britain's most serious political crisis since 1945, it is intolerable.

I have been politically active for five sixths of the lifetime of Laura Pidcock, but I have never previously encountered anything like her level of sheer arrogance and entitlement. 

There ought to have been a by-election at North West Durham on 30th August or on 6th September. There now needs to be one not later than 29th November, as a matter of the utmost urgency. Laura Pidcock has got to go.

My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

A Time To Put In The Time

In the midst of this country's biggest political upheaval since the Second World War, and while apparently performing no constituency duties either, when, if ever, does the Member of Parliament for North West Durham intend to return to the House of Commons? 

If her family circumstances now mean that she cannot be there at this of all times, then she needs to make way for someone who can be, and who would be. There needs to be a by-election. She needs to resign.

My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Nation-Building

One third of polling stations in Afghanistan are not open for today's elections, because it would not be safe for them to be so.

Hasn't the "liberation" of that country gone well? And it continues to be defended by most Labour and, unless I am very much mistaken, all Conservative MPs. Nor did the Liberal Democrats or the SNP oppose it.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Bullseye?

Margaret Thatcher on the £50 note? 

Well, it would serve as a reminder that her party has now twice placed this country in the hands of a rich man's bored wife whose hobby has got completely out of hand, making her Prime Minister without the slightest understanding of anything that that office entailed.

But it was that party which got rid of Margaret Thatcher. At least directly, no one else ever did. Why would it want to be reminded of her now?

Noes To The Left

While the entire Parliamentary Labour Party will vote against any Chequers-based deal, those who insist that the Conservatives are the party of Leave are delirious with joy at the unconfirmed possibility that 40 of that party's MPs might do likewise. 

Forty. Out of 316. About one in eight. 276 Conservative MPs, seven out of eight of them, will therefore vote in favour of whatever Theresa May brings back. And that is on the best estimates of the fantasists who believe that the Conservatives are the party of Leave. Meanwhile, the entire Parliamentary Labour Party will vote against any Chequers-based deal.

But then, of the five people who have contested Labour Leadership Elections since 2015, by far the most Eurosceptical has won both of them, including the 2016 one that was held after the referendum and which was very much fought on this issue. 

Also after the referendum, the Conservative Party gave its Leadership to Theresa May without a contest. All five people who have contested Labour Leadership Elections since 2015 have been more Eurosceptical than Theresa May, and all four of them who are still in the House of Commons will vote against her deal.

Whereas no more than 40 Conservative MPs, and probably not even that many, will do so. After all, why would the rest? Not only will they agree with it, but they are justifiably scared out of their wits of losing their seats to the Liberal Democrats in the Remain heartlands for which they sit. Ask them. They will tell you. They will tell you in no uncertain terms.

There are still those who forlornly try to fight it, but the perception has well and truly taken root that the EU referendum result was pretty much a straight North-South split between Leave and Remain, that it was the first in centuries of Northern revolts to have succeeded, that it was the rejection of a generation of Thatcherism by those who had suffered the most as a result of it, and so on. The composition of today's march will more than confirm that perception.

Jolly good. We need to make that work for us. We Are The Masters Now. Thankfully, another hung Parliament is coming. Our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Never Forget

Having been expanded to include all the relevant names, Lanchester's War Memorial was rededicated this afternoon.

It was very much the sort of ceremony that you would have expected, and there was a good turnout. Friday afternoon was not necessarily ideal, but this way we got to have the Lord Lieutenant present.

Not present, however, was the Member of Parliament for North West Durham, who is a resident of Lanchester. That did not go unremarked, nor should it have done.

But I was there.

My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

A Poor Show

The fact that Johnny Mercer is right does not alter the fact that in any half-competently run political party, he would have been out on his ear by now.

Reverse Transition

In the dispute between trans activists and their opponents, you will never see or hear anyone whom you could imagine voting Conservative.

The opposition to gender self-identification is coming firmly from the kind of Left that, until the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, the media pretended, or even sincerely believed, had ceased to exist 20 years earlier.

A certain number of Conservative MPs might vote against self-identification, although probably not very many. But unlike me, they would have no interest whatever in repealing it once it had gone through.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

At The Core

Ah, the core supporters versus the swing voters. That one again.

Were we Northerners, left-wingers and so on predominant among Leave voters? Who knows? Although probably not.

But were we decisive in swinging the referendum for Leave, and would we be decisive of any future referendum, including on reaccession, a cause that is far from lost? Undoubtedly, yes.

We voted to reject 39 years of failure under all three parties, beginning with the Callaghan Government’s turn to monetarism in 1977, the year of my birth. Had we not done so, then Remain would have won.

We looked up our wealth and power at the point of accession in 1973, then we looked at our wealth and power in 2016, and the question answered itself. Had it not done so, then there would have been no Brexit.

Therefore, Brexit needs to suit us. Thankfully, then, another hung Parliament is coming. Our people need to hold the balance of power in it.

My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Capable of Delivering

Marcus Barnett writes: 

Jeremy Corbyn said today that he can “fully understand” why working-class areas voted to leave the European Union, as he outlined his party’s Brexit plans. 

The Labour leader was meeting people in the East Midlands, including the constituencies of North East Derbyshire, Bolsover and Ashfield — all of which all voted overwhelmingly for EU withdrawal.

He said that, although he had campaigned for “Remain and reform” in the run-up to the 2016 referendum, he understood what had prompted large numbers of working-class people nationwide to vote Leave. 

Mr Corbyn said: “Why would anyone who hasn’t had a pay rise in 10 years, can’t get a proper bus service in the evening or worries about sending their kids to university because of years of crunching debt listen to politicians saying nothing really needs to change?” 

Outlining Labour’s vision for EU withdrawal, Mr Corbyn said that his party offers an “alternative plan” that encourages job growth, social and employment rights. 

He also emphasised the need to avoid a hard border in the north of Ireland, as well as a new relationship with the EU single market and a newly configured customs union. 

“The Tories aren’t going to use Brexit to rebuild Britain,” he warned. 

“They want to use it to slash rights and protections and turbocharge their bankers-first market free for all.” 

Mr Corbyn said that Labour “will not support a deal cobbled together by a divided and chaotic Tory government if it’s going to make life tougher for millions of people. 

“But, even more importantly, Labour in government has a plan for a post-Brexit Britain where we use the powers available to kick-start the economy and rebuild our industry, infrastructure and public services in all regions and nations of the UK.” 

He also attended a local anti-fracking meeting in Eckington, North Derbyshire, where he congratulated residents on their commitment and determination to “support their local community and oppose fracking.” 

Usdaw Tesco rep Cameron Mitchell said: “I think what Jeremy is saying today is spot on. 

“Thousands of our young Labour voters here also voted to leave the EU, and that mustn’t be forgotten in London’s corridors of power.

“Young workers want a better future across the country and Labour are the only party capable of delivering.”

Whereas Theresa May does not understand any of this at all. But then, nor do a lot of Labour MPs. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

To Do Things Differently

Fraser Myers writes:  

As the Brexit talks go nowhere fast, the potential for a No Deal scenario has seen Project Fear return with a vengeance. 

But is Brexit really the economic disaster it is often made out to be? Are there not opportunities to be seized from leaving the EU? 

Some on the right envision an economy of low taxes and deregulation. But what are the opportunities for the left after Brexit?

spiked caught up with Larry Elliott, the Guardian’s left-wing, Leave-voting economics editor, for a chat. 

spiked: Why did you vote to leave? 

Larry Elliott: A number of reasons. I didn’t think the economy was working very well for large chunks of Britain. Economic change comes through shocks – Brexit was a massive shock. 

I also have an old-fashioned left-wing view of the European Union. I don’t think it is democratic, I don’t think it works very well, and I think it is run in the interests of big business rather than ordinary people. 

I voted to come out in 1975, along with a large portion of the left, for what were then seen as Bennite reasons: democracy and the fact that it was pro-boss and anti-worker. I haven’t really changed my mind over the past 40 years. 

Greece is a pretty big example of this. There’s the way the single currency works – it has austerity ingrained in the Stability and Growth Pact. 

The way it operates is driven by German thinking: balanced budgets, very hardline monetary policy. You see this in the way Brussels has become a haven for lobbyists for big multinational corporations. 

spiked: What are the economic opportunities of Brexit? 

Elliott: The big opportunity is just to do things differently. Big economic shocks give you the space and the ability to say, hang on, the status quo is no longer a valid option, we want to do something different. That’s the overarching thing.

There are also a number of freedoms that you get from being outside the EU. You get to have your own trade policy, you have much more freedom in terms of industrial strategy, you’re not bound by EU rules that might hinder you from renationalising chunks of industry.

To me, the economy is really run in the interests of one particular region. The geography of Europe means that London and the south-east are plugged into the central European core of the EU and the rest of the country is a different planet.

I want to rebalance the economy away from the Remain-voting areas to the Leave-voting areas. I think that’s what those areas were really demanding when they voted to leave.

spiked: Is there a danger that the left has spent the past two years fighting for the status quo? 

Elliott: Absolutely. There are an awful lot of people on the left who see their task in life now as being to turn Britain back to how it was on the day before the referendum.

But if you’d gone back there and talked to people on the left and asked them, ‘Do you think David Cameron and George Osborne’s Britain is really working?’, they would have said: ‘No, no, no! There’s a balance of payments deficit, a north-south divide and rising inequality…’ 

The left’s approach to Leave voters has been very, very patronising and condescending, i.e., ‘they didn’t know what they were voting for, they were just conned into it by the slogan on the side of a bus, these are the people who are going to be hit hardest…’.

I find that really, really annoying. It strikes me as weird that on the left there’s been this wave of support for internal Labour Party democracy.

Momentum say ‘we should listen to the people’, but what about listening to people on the Brexit vote? The people voted in the biggest referendum there has ever been, many of them for the first time. 

spiked: There were a lot of scare stories about the economy during the referendum. Why have these predictions not come to fruition? 

Elliott: One reason is that a lot of those forecasts were just wrong. Whether it is the Treasury, the Bank of England, the IMF or the OECD, all of their forecasts were based on pretty much the same model.

If you put the same stuff in, you’re going to get the same stuff out. There has been slower growth over the past two years, but it is what you’d expect given the wall-to-wall diet of negativity.

The BBC and most of the papers are just full of Project Fear Mark II stories about how terrible it is all going to be. So it is not surprising that businesses have decided that it is not a great time to invest. 

At first, the economy slowed a bit because the pound fell and inflation went up, but now it is slow mainly because business has put off investing for the duration of the Brexit process.

The idea that we’ll be impoverished after Brexit is complete cobblers. The economy that will be created after Brexit will depend on the choices we make after Brexit.

Even if you assume that there is going to be this massive hit to trade and productivity, which is what the IMF and Treasury studies show – and those are really overblown – they also presuppose that there is going to be no other changes to the way the economy is run! 

I don’t think the economy is going to go down some preordained path. 

spiked: Should we fear a No Deal outcome? 

Elliott: If by ‘No Deal’ you mean leaving on WTO terms, I think there would be some problems initially, but I don’t think it would be that bad an outcome. The US and China trade with the EU on WTO terms. 

It would add some frictions in the short term, but I’m not someone who thinks it would be disastrous for the economy. 

To be honest, I’d rather have a clean Brexit than what currently seems to be on offer: staying in the EU in all but name, with no say over how things are run. 

That’s the sort of outcome that May is aiming for. That seems to be how the British establishment has sorted out the ‘Brexit problem’. 

Having put a lot of pressure on people to vote a certain way and being disappointed, it is now trying to find a backdoor way to keep Britain essentially in the EU – or so closely aligned that people will eventually say, ‘we might as well be in’.

If the Remainers get their way, the votes of all those people will be proved to be completely worthless, and nothing will really change. 

The people who run this country don’t give two hoots about people in Stoke-on-Trent and Hartlepool and all those places that voted heavily for Leave.

But if the vote is reversed, what sort of backlash are we going to get in four or five years’ time? I think we could see a really aggressive form of right-wing politics.

There is going to be a massive alienation in those parts of Britain, who will feel, rightly, let down.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Give Us A Break

Since Northern Ireland has always been a separate legal jurisdiction, there has always been "a border down the Irish Sea". So far, that border, in itself, has never "broken up the United Kingdom".

Has the very comprehensive level of devolution to Northern Ireland, and that for the second time, "broken up the United Kingdom"?

Has the legal status of the Welsh language "broken up the United Kingdom"?

Has the Established status of the Church of England "broken up the United Kingdom"?

Has the existence of totally different systems of English and Scots law "broken up the United Kingdom"?

The Union is defined by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. 

Compared to what that body has already found it quite within its capacity to accommodate, keeping Northern Ireland within the Customs Union in order prevent the reemergence of a "hard border" in Ireland would be a perfectly simple thing to do.

It may or may not be a good thing to do. But it would be a perfectly simple one.

Self-Identification

In 50 years' time, when it is just possible that I might still be alive, people then aged under 30 will refuse to believe that there was ever any such concept as gender self-identification.

There are the usual rumours of the fairies at the bottom of the garden, believe in them when you see them, "Tory rebels". But they will all vote for this. Just as they will all vote for Chequers, or whatever it had turned into. If you want opposition to either, then you need to read the Morning Star.

My present MP here in North West Durham is sometimes cited as an opponent of gender self-identification, although she has never said anything publicly. Will she vote against it?

If it had been enacted, then would she seek to repeal it? I would. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Our Act Together

According to Nigel Farage, if the transition period is not over by May 2019, then the United Kingdom should continue to elect Members of the European Parliament.

It is wildly unlikely to be permitted to do. But just in case, we do need to have our act together, in order to offer representation to the people whose votes decided the EU referendum.

We voted to reject 39 years of failure under all three parties, beginning with the Callaghan Government’s turn to monetarism in 1977, the year of my birth. Had we not done so, then Remain would have won.

We looked up our wealth and power at the point of accession in 1973, then we looked at our wealth and power in 2016, and the question answered itself. Had it not done so, then there would have been no Brexit.

Therefore, Brexit needs to suit us. And so does at least some continuing representation in the European Parliament, if there is to be any.

Take Note

No, Margaret Thatcher should not be on the new £50 note. 

Any politician famous enough to merit consideration must by definition have been too divisive to be so depicted. 

And yes, that certainly did apply to Churchill, who led his party to two General Election defeats.

Politicians are not appropriate subjects for banknotes. They just aren't.

Identity Politics

I have given up on the consultation into the "reform" of the Gender Recognition Act. 15 minutes in, and I was still only on Page Two. That cannot only have been due to heavy traffic. Or if it was, then it was because they knew what that traffic would be saying. 

Of course, for what it is worth, I fully agree with everything that they will have been told about the safety of women and girls. But they will have been told all of that. They do not need to read it again from me, of all people.

All that I wanted to do was to tell them to keep vaginas out of teenage boys' changing rooms and showers, and to spare fathers and their young sons the embarrassment of seeing such things. I am about to email them to that effect, even if that does not count towards the consultation.

If you want the next hung Parliament to contain at least one MP who said these things out loud, and who would seek to repeal gender self-identification if it had already been enacted, then my crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

I'm No Fool

There is at least one basic factual error in this.

But Bruce Unwin, the reporter, got it from the prosecution barrister. She cannot even get that right, so she is clearly not across this case. Jolly good.

See you in April, Bruce. And see her in April, too.

Ahem ... Indeed

If your problem is with who published this, then ask yourself why no one else would have done so, considering that we all know it. John Wight writes: 

That a free press underpins British democracy is an enduring myth that has been allowed to go unchallenged, up there with unicorns and the Loch Ness Monster. 

Because if a clutch of right-wing reactionary billionaires owning the bulk of a nation's major newspaper titles and media constitutes a free press, the word 'free' has been stripped and shorn of all meaning. 

Yet, while the aforementioned – let's be kind here – 'anomaly' has long been understood by anyone of adult years with the ability to put their underpants on the right way round in the morning, the extent to which the British establishment press and media has been penetrated by intelligence services and acts as a conduit for their agenda is less well known. 

That it is less well known remains one of life's great mysteries nonetheless.

Scratch your average British journalist and you have yourself a frustrated spook; someone who would be on their toes at the sound of a car door slamming shut in the street, while harbouring fantasies of coming across Vladimir Putin in a dark alley one night and scoring one for the Empire. 

Take Con Coughlin, for example, Defence Editor at the Daily Telegraph (more colloquially and accurately known as the Daily Torygraph). 

Coughlin is a product of a private school production line that has unleashed more knaves on the world than spittle on a dentist's chair. 

While his outing as an MI6 asset may have been a long time coming, now that it has, it marks yet another nail in the coffin of a media class whose relationship to truth and objectivity belongs in the box marked non-existent.

Though I hold no candle for Guardian columnist, Owen Jones, it remains a truism that even a blind chicken gets a piece of corn sometimes; and on this basis Jones has rendered us a service in outing Coughlin in a recent series of devastating tweets. 

Also providing an invaluable service in helping join the dots of the story is The Canary, an independent left-wing news and views web journal that currently boasts a larger readership than a growing section of the mainstream media. 

As it turns out, Mr Coughlin's links to MI6 (Britain's foreign intelligence agency) go back some time. As Jones writes: "A 2000 article reveals Coughlin was fed material by MI6 for years, which he then turned into Telegraph news articles." 

The Guardian article Jones is referring to was published at a time when the centre-left newspaper was a worthy source of information and analysis, home to the likes of Seumas Milne, one of Britain's finest ever columnists, currently plying his trade as chief press adviser to Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

It just goes to show that whoever said evolution only moves in one direction had never taken the time to follow the trajectory of The Guardian in recent years. But that's another story. 

We are informed in the aforesaid 2000 Guardian article that "There is - or has been until recently - a very active programme by the secret agencies to colour what appears in the British press, called, if publications by various defectors can be believed, information operations, or 'I/Ops'." 

Further on: "A colourful example of the way these techniques expanded to meet the exigencies of the hour came in the early 70s, when the readers of the News of the World were treated to a front-page splash, "Russian sub in IRA plot sensation", complete with aerial photograph of the conning tower of a Soviet sub awash off the coast of Donegal." 

This story was of course entirely bogus, as was one published in the Sunday Telegraph, sister paper of the aforementioned Daily Telegraph, over two decades later, written by – you guessed it – Con Coughlin. 

From the article: "he [Coughlin] regaled [the newspaper's] readers with the dramatic story of the son of Libya's Colonel Gadafy (sic) and his alleged connection to a currency counterfeiting plan. The story [implicating Saif Gaddafi] was… falsely attributed to a 'British banking official.' In fact, it had been given to him by officers of MI6, who, it transpired, had been supplying Coughlin with material for years." 

Coughlin, by the way, is also revealed, according to Jones, to have been an eager shill for the Saudis. 

In the wake of the disappearance of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, whom according to Turkish authorities was brutally murdered and dismembered by a group of Saudis, who, equipped with a bone saw, flew in to the country from the Kingdom to carry out the deed especially, Coughlin went to work shrouding matters in a fog of benign uncertainty. 

Consider: "It could well be, therefore, that the unfortunate Mr Khashoggi has become the victim of the region's dangerous and conflicting currents." 

Ahem… indeed. 

Coughlin also saw fit to describe current Saudi tyrant - sorry Crown Prince - Muhammad Bin Salman (affectionately known as MbS) as a "human dynamo," after he was afforded the privilege of a sit down interview. 

At the risk of focusing too much on Mr Coughlin and his work, however, we are obliged to make the point that he is merely one among many British establishment journalists who have eagerly embraced the role of conduit of the nation's intelligence services over the years.  

In his classic work on the 1984-85 miners' strike, The Enemy Within, Seumas Milne writes: 

"The incestuous relationship between the intelligence services and sections of the [British] media is, of course, nothing new. The connection is notoriously close in the case of foreign correspondents… Sandy Gall, the ITN reporter and newsreader, boasted of his work for MI6 in Afghanistan during the 1980s." 

Milne, in the same passage, goes on to reveal how "After US Senate hearings in 1975 revealed the extent of CIA recruitment of both American and British journalists, 'sources' let it be known that half the foreign staff of a British daily [newspaper] were on the MI6 payroll." 

So there you have it, the murky relationship between British intelligence and the country's establishment journalists is one that reaches far back in time and continues in the present, as redoubtable and reliable as Big Ben itself. 

In fact considering where we are, the indefensible positions taken by prominent newspaper journalists and columnists at not only the Telegraph but also The Times and, yes, The Guardian over Russia, Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela et al. – in other words, the way that almost to a man and woman they have fallen into line behind their own government when it comes to who the officially designated enemies of the moment should be – the question we need to ask ourselves is not how many of them might be in the pay of MI6 and MI5, but how many of them might not?

Bin There, Done That

For as long as there have been new rulers of Saudi Arabia, then each one of them has always been "the Great Reformer". To put matters at their very mildest, none of them has ever turned out to have been any such thing.

Lo and behold, nor is Mohammed bin Salman. But even after the next General Election, the Labour and Conservative benches will remain replete with his hired help, while the Lib Dems also fully complied with Saudi instructions when they were in government.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Chuck Chuka?

Between his MP's salary, his Independent column, and now £85,000 per annum to chair a "centrist" think tank, Chuka Umunna will be paid more than the Prime Minister.

He should be required to pay £42,500 per annum to the Labour Party, and the same to his own Constituency Labour Party, or he should have the Labour Whip withdrawn.

Thick With Bitterness

One of my proudest achievements is that the Daily Telegraph sacked me. Among the many gems in this, the author, and thus also the editor, manage to get Jeremy Corbyn​'s age wrong by 12 years.

And as the middle-aged holder of a respectable but middling academic record, it always amuses me when people start banging on about their A-levels from when they were still teenagers, or their classes of degree from when they were still in their very early twenties. What have you done with the rest of your life?

Lost In Transit

The only transition period that interests this Government is transition back into full membership of the EU. I used to think that that might take 10 years. But I no longer expect it to take anything like that long.

I tried to tell you that the plan was to make us a colony and a satrapy, taking the rules without making the rules, and paying while having no say.

We might put up with that for a few years before we begged the EU to take us back on whatever terms it saw fit. But those to whom that is the aim will not have very long to wait.

Those include the party that made Theresa May its Leader without a contest, declaring her to be the only one of this country's 66 million inhabitants who was even hypothetically capable of being Prime Minister.

Opponents of the EU in the Conservative Party are like unicorns, a mainstay of popular culture for children, but never sighted in real life.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Support Allowance

After the scandal around Employment and Support Allowance, we may dare to hope that the Universal Basic Income will be set at such a level as to accommodate even severe disability. But for everyone. 

Things are only as bad as they are because they might soon be as good as they could be. After Universal Credit, the Universal Basic Income.

As an utterly middle-class person, Universal Credit is the most utterly middle-class arrangement of which I have ever even heard, despite being intended, at least in the main, for an entirely different section of society.

Monthly payment into the bank (the what?) is practically a foreign language to the people under discussion. Dare we hope that the Universal Basic Income will be paid weekly and in cash, to everyone?

But seriously, if that isn't, another hung Parliament is coming, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Trial Date

Make your own jokes about the fact that my trial is now due to start at Durham Crown Court on Monday 1st April 2019.

I was arrested on 13th March 2017, and charged on 13th April 2017. Less only a few days, it will have taken them two years to bring their cast iron, incontrovertible, open-and-shut case against me, no part of which has yet been produced.

So cast iron, so incontrovertible, so open-and-shut is it, that my trial is to last "five days plus". It will take at least an entire working week, and quite conceivably longer than that. Come one, come all. Roll up, roll up. The circus is coming to town.

I cannot be bothered to keep up Libel Watch now that there is, for the time being, no Trial Date Watch. So instead, I challenge Simon Henig to show his face in court.

With any luck, there will be a General Election either on Thursday 28th March, meaning that I will stand trial days after having been elected to Parliament, or on Thursday 4th April, meaning that I will be elected to Parliament while a defendant.

My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

#ComeOutForTransEquality?

#ComeOutForReality, more like.

When it comes to changing rooms and so forth, then your name, your clothes and your pronouns are all irrelevant. It is about your body parts.

Some facilities are for people with certain body parts, who do not want to see the other kind there.

Other facilities are for people with other body parts, who are positively endangered by having the first kind there.

There might have to be changes of signage, but that is all. For now, keep your penis out of the ladies'. What a difference an apostrophe makes.

Everyone knows these things, but if you want the next hung Parliament to contain at least one MP who was prepared to say them, then my crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

At All

There is no difference between Keir Starmer's "No one is ruling out Remain as an option" and Theresa May's insistence that the alternative to her Chequers-based deal would be "no Brexit at all".

Except that he was slapped down and his view is not his party's policy, whereas she is the Prime Minister, thanks to a party so viscerally pro-Remain that it made her its Leader without an election.

By contrast, Labour has had a Leadership Election since the referendum, and it has explicitly re-elected Jeremy Corbyn, by an increased margin, against a more pro-EU alternative who was in favour of a second referendum.

Corbyn has never threatened, nor would he ever threaten, "no Brexit at all". For that, you need the undisputed Leader of the Conservative Party.

Face it, while the entire Opposition is going to vote against whatever May brings back, the number of Conservatives doing so will be lucky to reach two dozen, and will consist mostly of people best known for their fancy dress. The rest will be utterly obscure.

This is Maastricht all over again, pretty much. I remember when John Redwood was standing for Leader against John Major, and an interviewer, I have a feeling that it was Jeremy Paxman, asked him which of his supporters was going to be in his Cabinet. Teresa Gorman in the Cabinet? Tony Marlow in the Cabinet? The very question was a joke. And here we are again.

Having the same heartlands as the Remain vote, the Conservative Party lives in open dread of losing 10 or 20 seats, if not more, to the Liberal Democrats in the South. Had the last Parliament run its full course, then that would have happened in 2020.

By contrast, in 2017, the Leave heartlands not only remained loyal to Labour, but they greatly increased the majorities of scores of its MPs. And the Labour Leadership remains loyal to them, while the Conservative Leadership talks of "no Brexit at all".

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. Otherwise, that balance would be held by 10 or 20 Southern Lib Dems, if not more, to whom the economic changes since 1973, accelerating since 1977, had been just fine and dandy.

My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Preach It?

If Anjem Choudary were in Syria, then we would fund and arm him. 

But as we await his release, he reminds me of the late Eugène Terre'Blanche, who went into prison an extremely dangerous man, but who came out only three years later as such a ridiculous figure that passers by were literally pointing and laughing at him.

I would love to meet Choudary, just to see how long it would take before I exclaimed, "Old Mother Choudary, you are such a silly bitch!"

Thus should he be greeted wherever he goes.

Time To Speak Up

There is only a case for a new Speaker of the House of Commons if there is a candidate who would clearly be better than the incumbent. But we have all known for many months who was being lined up for the job.

I have spent more than 20 years, since I was just about still in my teens and had never seen the Internet, trying to get the story out about Harriet Harman and the Paedophile Information Exchange. I have paid a terrible journalistic and political price for it, but I have no regrets.

Media that always knew about it simply ignored the whole thing, banning me from their websites and what have you, until a period of no more than two weeks when they needed to distract attention from Patrick Rock. Normal service was rapidly resumed, and it has continued ever since.

No one has done more on this issue than I have. No one. And now, the plan is advancing to make Harman the next Speaker of the House of Commons. Not only would I oppose her election, but, were she already in post, then I would oppose her re-election at the start of the next Parliament.

My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

The Point of Accession

Face it, while the entire Opposition is going to vote against whatever Theresa May brings back, the number of Conservatives doing so will be lucky to reach two dozen, and will consist mostly of people best known for their fancy dress. The rest will be utterly obscure.

This is Maastricht all over again, pretty much. I remember when John Redwood was standing for Leader against John Major, and an interviewer, I have a feeling that it was Jeremy Paxman, asked him which of his supporters was going to be in his Cabinet. Teresa Gorman in the Cabinet? Tony Marlow in the Cabinet? The very question was a joke. And here we are again.

Having the same heartlands as the Remain vote, the Conservative Party lives in open dread of losing 10 or 20 seats, if not more, to the Liberal Democrats in the South. Had the last Parliament run its full course, then that would have happened in 2020. 

But here in the areas that decided the EU referendum, we voted to reject 39 years of failure under all three parties, beginning with the Callaghan Government’s turn to monetarism in 1977, the year of my birth. Had we not done so, then Remain would have won. 

We looked up our wealth and power at the point of accession in 1973, then we looked at our wealth and power in 2016, and the question answered itself. Had it not done so, then there would have been no Brexit. 

Therefore, Brexit needs to suit us. Free from the Single Market and the Customs Union, we need State Aid, capital controls, free trade agreements with the BRICS countries even while remaining thoroughly critical of their present governments, the integration of every part of the country into the Belt and Road Initiative, an extra £350 million per week for the National Health Service, and the restoration of the United Kingdom’s historic fishing rights in accordance with international law: 200 miles, or the median line. 

Another hung Parliament is coming, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. Otherwise, that balance would be held by 10 or 20 Southern Lib Dems, if not more, to whom the economic changes since 1973, accelerating since 1977, had been just fine and dandy.

My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Crimewatch

If some crimes are "hate crimes", then what are the others? Love crimes?

It should be, and it is, illegal to assault someone, or what have you. There should be the same sentencing and so forth whether your victim was a man or a woman, black or white, whatever.

But the perception of the victim as to the motive should have no bearing on the matter. I write this as someone who is visibly both mixed-race and disabled.

Time was when this was both common sense and firmly the position of the Left. It may still be the position of the Left, if you scratch hard enough. A lot of us have had it with lifestyle liberals. Alas, though, theirs is still the common sense of the age, at least where public policy is concerned.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Bug Bearings

Every embassy and consulate in the world is bugged by the host country. The Saudis wanted to be caught. They wanted to make the point that they could do something like this. And especially, they wanted to make that point against Turkey.

Turkey has lately adopted a neo-Ottoman ideology that starkly challenges the claim to leadership of the Sunni world on the part of the essentially arriviste House of Saud, who are merely the usurpatious and the almost accidental Custodians of the Two Holy Mosques.

If you want the next hung Parliament to contain at least one MP who understood these things and who was prepared to articulate them, then my crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Credit Running Out

Universal Credit is doomed. Onwards to Richard Nixon's Universal Basic Income, as advocated by The Economist and by the Adam Smith Institute.

Large numbers of Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem and SNP MPs would all be opposed to this, of course. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it.

My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Whose House?

The House of Commons does not recognise its employees' trade union representation. That situation obtained throughout 13 years of Labour Government.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.

Trial Date Watch: Day 152

More than 26 weeks after I had again been due to stand trial, I now no longer have a trial date, even though it is rightly a criminal offence to fail to attend one's trial.

Had I been tried, as expected, on 6th December, then, even had I been convicted, I would already have been released, since I would by now have served even the whole of a wildly improbable six month sentence.

The legal persecution of me, which has been going on for over a year, was initiated only in order to deter me from seeking public office or to prevent my election to it, and its continuation is only to one or both of those ends. Amnesty International is on the case.

Until there is anything to add to it, then this post will appear here every day that the post is delivered.

Libel Watch: Day 205

The Leader of Durham County Council, Simon Henig, was so afraid that I was going to be elected to that authority, that he faked a death threat against himself and dozens of other Councillors.

Despite the complete lack of evidence, that matter is still being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of the attempt by the sacked Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, to secure a Labour seat in one or other House of Parliament.

If I am wrong, then let Henig and Saunders sue me. Until they do, then this post will appear here every day that the post is delivered.

Aisle Be Damned

My latest for OffGuardian: See what the two main American political parties have become.

Frack Off

We do not even know that the shale gas is there, whereas we do know that about coal. Coal can now be burned cleanly. Mining it employs huge numbers of people, sustaining entire communities. We have vast reserves of it, and the areas that have it need the money, often desperately. None of that applies to fracking.

Between them, domestic coal and civil nuclear power (to which the last Labour Government, for all its faults, was strongly committed, whereas David Cameron called it "a last resort") offer large numbers of well-paid, highly skilled, high-status, unionised jobs, together with independence from Saudi and other oil, from Russian and other gas, and from the coal that we still use, but which we import from child and slave labour that will soon include child and slave labour in North Korea.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.