The Real Deal?

Do you want this country's nuclear codes in the hands of someone who had ever taken cocaine? No, neither do I. And "20 years ago," Michael Gove was 31. Even if we are talking about "more than 20 years ago," then that still puts him well into his twenties. This was not a teenage or an undergraduate indiscretion.

If, that is, it ever happened. Gove has been sitting there thinking, "Oh, hell, Rory has smoked opium in Iran, and Boris has done, well, pretty much everything, in fact he's still at it. I am coming across as too dull." So he has come up with this. But he has still managed to get the numbers wrong, thereby making it sound as if he had been a cokehead well into his working life. Hardly a qualification to be Prime Minister, one would have thought.

There is no point claiming that Rory Stewart is not going to win the Conservative Party Leadership Election. Whoever wins this admittedly absurd contest is indeed going to become Prime Minister in a few weeks' time. That will be a Brexiteer only if such a person were among the two names submitted to Conservative Party members by that party's MPs.

If both of those names were Remainers, then a Remainer would become Prime Minister. Even a Remainer who had once nearly joined the Lib Dems and who had in fact been a member of Neil Kinnock's Labour Party. Indeed, especially a Remainer who had once nearly joined the Lib Dems and who had in fact been a member of Neil Kinnock's Labour Party.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare. And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up.

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge each and every other candidate to say likewise, beginning with the incumbent MP, who will presumably be the Labour candidate next time. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.