To The Core

As the Brexit Party would be wrong to contest the Peterborough by-election, so the Liberal Democrats would be wrong to endorse a joint candidate with the Greens or with Change UK unless that were the Lib Dem candidate. The local elections have established their credentials as the leading party of Remain, and their share of the vote in Peterborough went up by 12.5 per cent. 

Last night, even Michael Heseltine declined to endorse Change UK. Originally a National Liberal, and for all practical purposes a member of the Coalition, there can be no doubt where his vote will be going, along with the votes of the very large number of ordinarily Conservative-voting Remainers, who are found especially but not exclusively in the South.

The Greens have their own niche. And Change UK is nothing. Gavin Esler's remark about "village idiots" sums up his party. It has got him into a spat on Twitter with Piers Morgan, who was right about Iraq when almost the entire media, certainly including Esler, were wrong, and who receives the sheer scale of abuse that he does precisely for that reason.

The European Elections will show us that the electoral appeal of Blairism is now pitiful. The European Elections will show us that the electoral appeal of a party explicitly to the right of the Conservatives is scarcely but pointedly greater than that, since UKIP and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon are indeed to the right of the Conservatives, whereas the Brexit Party, as such, is not. And the European Elections will show us the size of the Conservative and Labour core votes.

The only people who are going to vote Conservative this time are going to be the hardcore Conservative voters, and the only people who are going to vote Labour this time are going to be the hardcore Labour voters. As the second largest bloc, the latter are going to outnumber the former very heavily in the country as a whole, and quite convincingly everywhere except in Scotland. Give all of that a few moments to sink in. Everything that everyone has always been taught about British politics is about to proved wrong in the most spectacular fashion.

Beyond that, another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. It has become a local commonplace that I am on 30-30-30 with Labour and the Conservatives here at North West Durham, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post. I will stand for this seat, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.