Thursday 31 October 2019

Real Change?

Like a general fighting the last war, Jeremy Corbyn is still fighting the 2017 General Election. As, indeed, is the other side. 

And from Corbyn's speech today, he still has no idea that a sovereign state with its own free floating fiat currency has as much of that currency as it chooses to issue to itself, with fiscal and monetary means readily to hand to control inflation while encouraging certain forms of behaviour and while discouraging others.

Both those fiscal means and those monetary means must therefore be under democratic political control, as they were under every Conservative Government up to and including the 1997 General Election. But that is the purpose of fiscal policy, of taxation. With monetary policy, it exists to control inflation while encouraging certain forms of behaviour and while discouraging others. It is not where the State's money comes from. Who on earth told you that?

90 per cent of all of the money that the State spends into existence in the first place, and that is how all money begins, will eventually make its way back to the State through the taxation system, regardless of what is taxed or at what rate. The question is how many stops there are to be on the given road to that destination, and where those stops are to be. The answers to that question are equally economic, social, cultural and political.

Corbyn still shows no sign of understanding any of this. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Non Vos Sed Nos

The MP for Lichfield, Michael Fabricant, has made an apparently serious call for the office of Archbishop of Lichfield, which existed from 787 to 799, to be revived for John Bercow. (If it matters, Fabricant and Bercow are both secular Jews.) 

Arise against this monstrous usurpation, all ye Sons of Saint Chad! Beginning with the present Lord Bishop of Lichfield, whom some of us remember when he was doing his doctorate.

Councillor Watch: Day 109

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 144

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Qui Gemit In Exilio

This is not a Christmas Election. This is an Advent Election. 

Bah! 

But not "Bah, humbug!", as that would be Christmas.

The Charnwood Char No More

As Nicky Morgan announces her retirement from Parliament, I am reminded that a staunchly Tory friend of mine once looked her straight in the face, and declared, in his best public school accent, "Madam, you are nothing but a c*nt."

Turnips

"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.

Wednesday 30 October 2019

Burn With Rage

If that Kensington block had been The Grenfell Tower, or 1 Grenfell Tower, then you can bet your life that it would have had sprinklers, and that it would not have had flammable cladding put on to spare the eyes of rich neighbours.

No, this is not the fault of the firefighters. This is the fault of central and local government, which must not be allowed to get away with what we are now seeing.

Blyth Spirit

Not to say, a Blyth Spartan. The great Ronnie Campbell used his last ever time speaking on the floor of the House of Commons to ask the Prime Minister for justice for the WASPI women. He will be sorely missed.

Not a single Labour MP has been deselected. Not one. Most of the contests to succeed retirees and defectors have been stitched up by the Blairites. The Left is unlikely to get onto the ballot at the next Leadership Election.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Berning Issues

Yes, Bernie Sanders has gone too Green in his old age, a long way from the New Deal and from the glory days of European social democracy. And yes, in a move that is not unrelated to the first, he is wrong about drugs, prostitution, transgender ideology, and abortion.

But he is right about an enormous number of other things. And that is his challenge to the people who have not gone too Green, and who are not wrong about drugs, prostitution, transgender ideology, and abortion. Being right about those issues is necessary. But it is not sufficient.

Councillor Watch: Day 108

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 143

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Tuesday 29 October 2019

This Is It, Then

Please give generously here. Or, for other options, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Also anyone in North West Durham who might be willing to sign my nomination papers. Spread the word, although now with some urgency. Very many thanks.

Discharge This

I have endured two “postponed” trials and a discharged jury. A fourth trial is scheduled for a year after the third one, which will be three years after I was arrested. But I am now a candidate at the forthcoming General Election.

Therefore, the continuation of the public laughingstock that is the clearly baseless criminal action against me, an action that was begun only in order to prevent me from being elected to Durham County Council, now constitutes an unwarranted interference in the process of electing the sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom. It ought to be ended immediately.

If it is not, then either the Director of Public Prosecutions, Max Hill QC, or his predecessor who charged me, the sacked Alison Saunders, ought to contest this seat of North West Durham against me.

If neither of them did so, then both would appear on my election literature as part of the long list of people who had run away and hidden from this particular challenge. Their names, their faces, their work addresses, and if obtainable their home addresses.

To avoid that, the Crown Prosecution Service must end the public laughingstock that is the clearly baseless criminal action against me.

"Boris Johnson Would Flog Off Our NHS To The Americans"?

I have no doubt that he would. But the EU tried to do the same thing in the form of TTIP. If we do not want to have our NHS flogged off to the Americans, then we need to elect people who will not do so, having taken back the power to make it matter whom we elected.

To that end, another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Suffering For Suffrage

I am opposed to lowering the voting age, but I accept that the "British, Irish or Commonwealth citizen" requirement to vote and stand in parliamentary elections is out of date. 

I am fairly sure that the ERG or the Daily Mail does not really want to extend the franchise to Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, as is already the case, but not to Americans or Israelis, who do not currently have it. 

So, while requiring parliamentary candidates to be British citizens in Great Britain, or British or Irish citizens in Northern Ireland, I would have no nationality qualification, simply as such, for voting. But such a change should only be introduced with a mandate from the previous General Election.

In any case, changing the Electoral Register to comply with such changes to the law would take at least six months, and Stella Creasy, a hardcore Blairite, is motivated by the desire, not to enfranchise Sixth Formers and EU nationals for their own sake, but to delay yet further the General Election for which the victims of austerity are crying out.

Creasy has of course been reselected as a Labour candidate. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Brought Before

50 years ago today, the Queen's Speech announced that, "Bills will be brought before you to promote improved industrial relations and to provide for equal pay for men and women."

The Minister behind the Equal Pay Act, Barbara Castle, remained to her dying day a staunch opponent of the EU, and of course that Act was passed before we ever joined the EU. We simply do not need the EU for workers' rights. We need a Government that believes in workers' rights. Meaning that we need to agitate, organise and vote for such a Government.

To that end, another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

The Children's Tea Party?

It looks as if the lowering of the voting age to 16 might itself be put to the vote in the House of Commons. But some children even younger than that, such as child actors, are liable for income tax.

In any case,"no taxation without representation" is the cry of the greatest of all the bourgeois revolts, the prototype of Thatcherism. It entirely misunderstands how both the money supply and the taxation system work.

And logically, it would require "no representation without taxation", so that no one would have the vote if their income fell below the income tax threshold. That is now the position of 43 per cent of adults in the United Kingdom. It would be the position of almost all 16 and 17-year-olds these days.

You see, contrary to what all sorts of people still seem to imagine, you cannot now leave the system, one way or another, until you are 18, and £12,501 would be quite the Sixth Form Saturday job, or even quite the apprenticeship.

Most 16 and 17-year-old income taxpayers, such as there are, must be either fabulously well-paid entertainers, or just independently wealthy. But by the logic of the Votes at 16 lobby, they alone of their age group should have the vote.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

In The Firing Line

As predicted here months ago, the people who tried to blame the miners for Orgreave and the fans for Hillsborough are now trying to blame the firefighters for Grenfell Tower. Think about that as you campaign and vote to re-elect Keith Vaz, and Margaret Hodge, and the next Leader of the Labour Party, Jess Phillips.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Councillor Watch: Day 107

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 142

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Deo Gratiam Habeamus

A judge has allowed Nick Sandmann's lawsuit against The Washington Post to proceed. The fact that his black peers have no such opportunities is not his fault. 

Where you stand on the Covington Boys is no longer about the March for Life as such, if it ever was. It is about what you think of the liberal media.

Monday 28 October 2019

Still Barking

Margaret Hodge has been reselected. Let's see who will now stand against her at the General Election.

Extended Beyond Endurance

There may be good people in them, and all the rest of it. But in itself, no party in the present House of Commons is worthy of the support of serious people in the electorate at large. 

Brexit has now been "extended" into 2020, making a second referendum inevitable, if Article 50 is not simply revoked. Despite having been given a Second Reading comfortably, the Withdrawal Agreement Bill has itself been withdrawn in all but name. Having failed to deliver Brexit by 31st October, Boris Johnson ought already to have resigned by now. But, of course, he has not. 

Over on the other side, we are now told that students would be "disenfranchised" if elections were held during the university vacations, and that there cannot be a General Election if it is "too dark", even though polling stations are already open until 10 o'clock. So much for the urgent need to "Get The Tories Out".

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Por La Razón O La Fuerza

Neoliberalism was born in Chile, and it will die in Chile.

That death has now begun.

Hodge Out, Harman Out

Her record on child abuse when she was the Leader of Islington Borough Council, the beginning of a nearly 40-year feud with Jeremy Corbyn who stood up for the victims, is why Margaret Hodge ought to be deselected tonight.

Something very similar is also why Harriet Harman ought not to become the next Speaker of the House of Commons. To the best of my knowledge, before anyone asks, I am not related to Sir Lindsay Hoyle. But he is the outstanding candidate.

And To Temper Wit With Morality?

Boris Johnson's stable of fanzines, one of which he used to edit, is up for sale because it is practically bankrupt.

This is proving difficult for some people to comprehend. But when General Electric was sold some years ago, then NBC was classified as a worthless asset. These things happen.

And keep saying it, amid all the talk of this Prime Minister's popularity. His stable of fanzines, one of which he used to edit, is up for sale because it is practically bankrupt.

It Really Gets Up Your Nose

How did Keith Vaz remember that he had amnesia?

Anyway, he looks set to be suspended from the House of Commons for six months because he had expressed a willingness to buy cocaine for another person.

Was that person Michael Gove? After today, Gove's position, which was always flaky, has become completely untenable.

Losing The Whip Hand

Labour is to whip an abstention on a General Election. So much for #GTTO ("Get The Tories Out"). Yes, there would have been anti-Corbyn Labour MPs who would have opposed this Election. Well, a three-line whip to support it would have flushed them out right in time for them to explain to their Constituency Labour Parties and to their constituents why they had tried to keep austerity going through another winter. I do not understand what has happened either to Jeremy Corbyn or to Nick Brown.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Of Bills And Paying

When it became clear that we were not leaving on Thursday, then Boris Johnson should have resigned. When he cannot get his General Election tonight, then the case for his doing so will be unanswerable. In any meaningful sense, he is simply not the Prime Minister at all. 

But there is talk of a one clause Bill tomorrow, to force a General Election without reference to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. A what? Every effort will be made to give it more than one clause.

A referendum, lowering the voting age, giving EU citizens the vote, and revoking Article 50 will all be proposed, debated, and voted on at more than one stage in each House of Parliament, one of which has no time limit on debates and can in any case sit on a Bill for up to a year. And there will be more.

I just don't get lowering the voting age. I have tried, but I just don't get it. The argument that "they pay tax" only works if you have to pay tax to vote. Anyway, five-year-olds can pay tax when they spend their pocket money, depending on what they buy. You cannot now leave the system, not necessarily school but some arm of the system, until you are 18. It is quite the Sixth Form Saturday job that pays £12,501. It is quite the apprenticeship that pays £12,501.

"You should have the vote if you pay income tax or National Insurance" is a bad argument in itself, according to which you would not have the vote if you did not pay income tax or National Insurance. But only the tiniest number of 16 and 17-year-olds pays those taxes, anyway. There are probably more very rich 16 and 17-year-olds paying income tax than there are apprentices doing so. But beyond this nonsense about tax, I have never heard or read an argument for votes at 16 that was not fundamentally and ultimately an argument for votes at birth.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Councillor Watch: Day 106

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 141

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Sunday 27 October 2019

Was, Is, And Will Be?

The BBC is stirring quite splendidly by suggesting that the Daily Mail might buy the Telegraph Media Group, the profits of which halved to a mere £900,000 in the last financial year. 

The Barclays will be looking for £10 million, but the only people with both the means and the will to pay that for it would be motivated by a desire for revenge. For example, the Daily Mail.

Or the trade unions, perhaps replicating the arrangement that gave nine national unions and the Durham Miners' Association a seat each on the Management Committee of the Morning Star in return for paying the bills. 

Or the eight times billionaire Church of England, which could find £10 million down the back of the sofa and think nothing of it.

Any advance on those?

This Stuff Is Important

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead. Again. As, in the words of The Washington Post, an austere religious scholar, how might I appropriately mourn a fellow austere religious scholar?

But how was and is there a so-called Islamic State at all? Where did it come from? It came from the removal of, for all its faults, the bulwark against such things in Iraq. And we fought IS in Iraq while supporting it in Syria, where Shamima Begum went in order to join it.

On which note, as Peter Hitchens writes today:

Here’s a curious story, that for some reason the BBC and the major international news agencies have not covered, though they definitely know about it. Did Britain, France and the USA have right on their side when we bombed Syria in April 2018 – supposedly in response to a poison gas attack by the Damascus regime? Or was the action rash and lawless?

In fact, we and the other countries did not actually wait for any investigation by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) – the recognised international watchdog. So imagine how awkward it would have been if the OPCW (which receives much support from Paris, London and Washington) had reported that claims of a poison gas attack were untrue, or at least unproven. Our bombing would then have been illegal. 

And imagine the relief in those capitals when the OPCW duly reported that it was reasonable to conclude that chlorine gas had been used. It was a pretty weak conclusion (and the original, more serious claim, that sarin had been used, was dismissed). 

And imagine the rage and upset in those same capitals when a whistleblower at the OPCW leaked information suggesting that this conclusion may have been wrong, and that gas cylinders supposedly dropped by helicopter could in fact have been placed at the scene by hand. Since the only people in the conflict who have helicopters are the Syrian state, this detail is pretty crucial. 

He said this rather important information had been mysteriously left out of the official report. Last week, a former boss of the OPCW, Jose Bustani, backed the whistleblower, and publicly accused the organisation of ‘irregular behaviour’ during its investigation. 

Mr Bustani said he had long held doubts about the alleged attack in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, saying: ‘I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best.’ We have had quite enough wars on false pretences. It costs lives, including those of our soldiers. This stuff is important.

And: 

I would be ashamed of myself if I did not mention the treatment of Julian Assange, a person I do not know and do not especially like. Yet his crimes, and those alleged against him do not seem to me to justify his being held in Belmarsh high-security prison as if he were a violent criminal. A free country should not behave like this.

The only MPs to have supported Assange are Chris Williamson and Kelvin Hopkins, both of whom are permanently "suspended" from the Labour Party; Ann Clwyd and Ronnie Campbell, both of whom are retiring; and my friend, Grahame Morris. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Councillor Watch: Day 105

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 140

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Saturday 26 October 2019

Dos Tua Virgo Pia Haec Est Quare Rege, Maria

Astonishing scenes in Newcastle for the visit of Our Lady of Walsingham. Through Her, He came to us, and through Her, we came to Him. Not even 48 hours, but the fruits will be borne for a generation, probably for two, and possibly for three. Praise God.

On Sunday 29th March 2020, when England is rededicated to Our Lady as Her Dowry, then the Bishops should also establish the Feast of Saint John Henry Newman as a Holy Day of Obligation, and restore Corpus Christi to its proper day, the day on which Richard II presented England to Our Lady as Her Dowry at Westminster Abbey in 1381.

That would be a start, anyway. By the recent canonisation of a man who was still alive when the present Pope's grandparents were born, England and English have been recognised, not only as a land and a language of people who died for the Faith a long time, but as a land and a language in which the Faith is written in the modern age. Let these be the glory days of the Church in this land.

And let not your hearts be troubled by anything to do with the Amazon Synod. Those who do not believe that Our Blessed Lord ever uttered His Commission to Saint Peter, much less that Saint Peter ever set foot in Rome, are seeking to invoke the Successor of Peter's universal ordinary and immediate episcopal jurisdiction, in which they do not believe, in the knowledge that those of us who did believe would be obliged to submit. Well, the Holy Father knows their game. And the Holy Spirit knows their game.

Telegraphic Memory

The Telegraph Media Group only made £900,000 last year. Anyone with two million pounds to spare could probably have it. 

Anyone with three million pounds to spare could probably have it by Christmas. Anyone with four million pounds to spare could probably have it this week.

Towering Over It All

Since there is now no realistic possibility of Brexit on Thursday, why has Boris Johnson not resigned?

But while I am the first to call for a General Election, we shall see how keen Johnson is on one in a week's time, after the publication of the report into Grenfell Tower.

He may say that that was not his fault. But political blame certainly lies with the party that was in power both centrally and locally, then as now. And he did not block Theresa May's peerage for Gavin Barwell.

Just As Well

Keep saying it until it sinks in. If you find it difficult, then write it down. We do not need the EU for workers' rights. And given the EU's record on the subject, that is just as well. For workers' rights, we need to organise, we need to agitate, and we need to vote. 

And no, David Miliband, the case for Brexit is not that "the referendum must be honoured". You answer nothing by answering that. The case for Brexit, for Lexit, is the case against EU membership that was advanced by your late father and by his friend, the real Mr Benn. 

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Get Your Clause In

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act could be overridden by a one clause Bill, you say? But it would not be a one clause Bill, would it? Amendments have already been as good as proposed, including one to lower the voting age to 16, and another to give EU citizens the vote.

Lowering the voting age would be contrary to the international, and specifically the European, norm on which its proponents usually insist. But it would be very much in keeping with the present age's return to the nineteenth century, when bourgeois society sentimentalised small children to a ridiculous extent, but when everyone treated adolescents as miniature adults.

And giving EU citizens the vote is a bad idea in itself, but the present "British, Irish or Commonwealth" rule enfranchises Pakistanis and Bangladeshis while denying suffrage to Americans or Israelis. Is that what the Right wants? Moreover, it means that you could have been living and voting here for decades, that in principle you might even be an MP, but you could lose it all if your country left the Commonwealth or was expelled from it.

Let everyone vote, but insist that MPs be British citizens in Great Britain, and British or Irish citizens in Northern Ireland. I am open to correction, but I cannot imagine that any sitting MP is not in that position. There could not be a more beautifully wrapped gift to the local opposition than a parliamentary candidate who was not a British citizen in Great Britain, or who was not a British or Irish citizen in Northern Ireland.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Mission Accomplished?

Hasn't the liberation of Iraq gone well? I cannot imagine why the regularly intervening Tony Blair and the ubiquitous Alastair Campbell are never asked about it.

Similarly, David Miliband is never asked about extraordinary rendition, or about his dodgy charity in New York. Since as long ago as 2007, when Blair first declared his intention to stand down, the BBC has been campaigning for this Miliband to become the Leader of the Labour Party.

But how old were many of today's Labour activists in 2007, or even in 2010 when he lost? He is nothing to them. Alas, though, he is something to most Labour MPs. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

A Striking Thought

Will Ministers not be paid while they were on strike, as anyone else would not be?

Still, you cannot be sacked while you are on strike, and only the employer can bring in blacklegs.

Over, then, to Her Majesty, to send in Jeremy Corbyn and his team as the scabs. What times we live in.

Councillor Watch: Day 104

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 139

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Friday 25 October 2019

And Carry On

Is there any truth in this carry on about a winter General Election? Everything else carries on in Scotland and the North of England from about now until about Easter. We have Christmas, and New Year's Eve, and all sorts. And the rest of time, we go to work.

David Miliband?

Any relation to the Miliband who mattered, although ultimately he didn't matter enough?

While The Iron Is Hot?

Boris Johnson is threatening that the Government will go on strike if the House of Commons refuses to allow a General Election.

But since he has already cancelled the Budget, and since his Queen's Speech might very politely have been described as thin, how would anyone be able to tell?

The Empire Strikes Back

Rumour has it that the Daily Mail has sacked Peter Oborne.

Councillor Watch: Day 103

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 138

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Dalmatic Dogmatics

The purported ordination of a woman to the Diaconate would have exactly as much sacramental effect as if it had been staged as a theatrical production, namely none whatever.

The bishop who had performed it would merely have committed a schismatic act. The Teaching of the Church would be unchanged, because that Teaching is unchangeable.

100 years from now, the canonisation of Saint John Henry Newman will be seen as a landmark event in the history of the Church, while nobody will remember the Amazon Synod.

Thursday 24 October 2019

The EU Is No Defender Of Workers’ Rights

Larry Elliott is the last good thing left in The Guardian:

Jacques Delors did one heck of a job when he showed up at the TUC conference in 1988. Britain was a year into Margaret Thatcher’s third term and the mood on the left was despondent.

Organised labour had been weakened by a combination of mass unemployment, a hollowing out of manufacturing, defeat in the miners’ strike and legal curbs on trade union power.

Fear not, Delors said. The domestic political outlook may be bleak but Thatcherism can be circumvented by action at a European level. Brussels has a plan for a social Europe that will protect workers, tame capitalism and prevent a race to the bottom.

The Delors message was instantly popular. Ron Todd, the general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union summed up the prevailing mood when he said “the only game in town is in a town called Brussels”.

Judging by the debate over the Brexit withdrawal bill, that sentiment remains powerful 31 years on.

All week Labour MPs have been lining up to say that only by staying closely aligned with the EU can the socially progressive rights that Brussels has delivered be protected.

There is one problem with this idea: it is complete nonsense.

Britain’s labour market has been reshaped over the past 40 years by deregulation, privatisation and anti-trade union laws, not by the limited protections delivered by the EU, which are weaker in practice than they sound in principle.

There was, for example, nothing in the draconian Trade Union Act 2016 that would have run counter to EU law, not even the clause – eventually dropped as the legislation passed through parliament – that picket supervisors would have to give their name to the police.

This should not come as a surprise, because from its earliest days the overriding principle behind the European project has been to make life easier for capital, which is why multinational corporations like it so much.

While the pro-employer bias has been there since the Treaty of Rome in 1957 it has become more pronounced in recent years as the slowdown in growth, entrenched high unemployment and the crisis in the eurozone have prompted calls for European labour markets to become more “flexible”.

Anybody who suggested to Greek workers that they should look to Brussels to protect their rights would be given short shrift.

It speaks volumes that when a structural adjustment programme was imposed on Athens as the price of financial support in 2015, it was the International Monetary Fund that sought to tone down the hardline demands of the Commission and the European Central Bank, for whom the imperative was to safeguard the profits of European banks rather than to protect Greek workers.

The truth is that social Europe never delivered all that much, even in the days when the European economy was in much better shape than it is currently.

That’s because a succession of EU treaties has enshrined in law four basic freedoms for business: the right to provide services; the right to establish an enterprise; the right to move capital; and the right to move labour.

These freedoms trump all other considerations, including the right of workers to withdraw their labour. This was best illustrated in the European court of justice’s ruling in the Viking case in 2007.

At issue was the concept of “posted workers”, employees hired in one country but employed in another.

Viking, a Finnish ferry company, posted workers from Estonia as a way of getting round collective bargaining agreements made in Finland.

The action by the company – a classic example of a race to the bottom – was challenged by the International Transport Workers Federation and ended up in the ECJ.

The judges sided with the company, with the ECJ advocate general Poiares Maduro saying “the possibility for a company to relocate to a member state where its operating costs will be lower is pivotal to the pursuit of effective intra-Community trade”.

Andy Haldane, the chief economist of the Bank of England, said this week that progress had been made in gender pay equality but more needed to be done.

What he didn’t say was that all the progress made thus far to reduce the gender pay gap to about 10% has been the result of domestic pressure and industrial action stretching back to the 1968 strike by women machinists at Ford’s Dagenham plant.

The EU was not responsible for the Equal Pay Act or the Sex Discrimination Act. Nor was it Brussels that led to the passing of the Health and Safety at Work Act or the Employment Protection Act.

All of these pieces of legislation were enacted in the first half of the 1970s, and it is no coincidence that this was a period when trade unions were stronger and collective bargaining more widespread.

In consequence, the only sure way to advance workers’ rights is to elect a government pledged to full employment and collective bargaining.

The notion that only Brussels stands in the way of a barrage of deregulation betrays not just a misunderstanding of the way the EU operates but also a deep and irrational pessimism on the left, a belief that the Conservatives will be in power for ever no matter what they do.

The left doesn’t need the EU to fight its battles. What it needs is to make the case for better working conditions and win over a public sick of a labour market loaded in favour of employers.

With a bit of self-confidence it shouldn’t be that difficult.

Bad For Your Health

Last night, in anticipation of another Coalition like the last one, a motion to protect the NHS from being sold off to the American healthcare companies and to Donald Trump was defeated after all 19 Liberal Democrat MPs abstained. Including the three who had been elected as Labour MPs. 

The only person so elected to go so far as to vote against this motion was John Woodcock, but that would have been par for the course even if he had still theoretically been in the Labour Party. The main story is that all 19 Lib Dems abstained, and thus was the motion lost.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

The Chancers Have Taken Their Chance

Most Labour MPs and Councillors are broadly apolitical people who are motivated by anything from a desire to serve their communities to, frankly, the money. Both factors routinely play a part. They are therefore easy prey to the large enough minority that is economically and internationally very right-wing indeed, not only in Labour but in absolute terms.

Such figures can appear intelligent, well-read and articulate to people who are not really any of those things very much, if at all. At local level, they have access to the sweeteners of rogue landlords, of corner-cutting property developers, of plain old-fashioned gangsters, and so on. At national level, they can dip into the enormous pockets of Tony Blair, the Sainsburys, the Clintons, George Soros, the House of Saud, Jeffrey Epstein in his day, and many more besides, including numerous fake charities.

Leaders of the Labour Party are now elected by the entire membership, but both the selection of municipal candidates, and the whole trigger ballot rigmarole with regard to parliamentary candidacies, are still conducted at Branch Meetings. In my time, I have attended many of those, and I have chaired quite a few of them. If you have ever turned up to your second one, then you are simply not a normal person.

Thus we see that the Right and its indifferent nodding dogs are still in firm control, as if Jeremy Corbyn has never existed, of the whole of Labour local government, with its enormous fiscal base enforceable on pain of imprisonment, among other sources of revenue and favours. And thus we see that 140 Labour MPs are refusing to vote for a General Election, because they do not want to risk the possibility of Corbyn as Prime Minister.

The failure to introduce mandatory reselection in 2017 means that there will still be nearly 200 Blairite or Blairite-compliant Labour MPs in the next Parliament. The people who brought you the Private Finance Initiative, the people who brought you the Iraq War, the people who brought you the attempt to bulldoze Tottenham in order to build an all-white luxury gated community on the ruins, and the people who brought you the cutting of the pay of 472 County Durham Teaching Assistants by 23 per cent: those people had one chance to survive to 2030. They have taken it.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Councillor Watch: Day 102

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 137

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Wednesday 23 October 2019

Ferrets In A Sack

There is no other way of describing them. Of the Labour County Councillors in North West Durham, every one who is not either too old, or too closely connected to me, or both, is now openly and publicly canvassing for the parliamentary seat. 

Across the board, every one of them is openly and publicly expressing an intention to vote for me unless they happened to be the candidate, even if in some cases they might be prepared to sign the existing MP's nomination papers for the sake of propriety.

Only a General Election this year, if that, can now save Laura Pidcock, but even then only until the next time, and only if she won this time, which absolutely nobody expects her to do. She lost Cramlington to the Conservatives. Losing North West Durham to me or to anybody else would be small stuff compared to that.

Whether or nationally or locally, nobody at all expects her to place any higher than third. This I know, because they are going out of their way to tell me. People to whom I am not permitted to reply are now contacting me through intermediaries to make me really rather good offers in return for what is clearly, and much to my surprise, my prized endorsement.

But the answer is no. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will be standing for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Something Rather Special

One million children with Special Education Needs and with disabilities are being betrayed in this country, and rather a lot of them are in County Durham, where the County Council has cut the pay of 472 Teaching Assistants by 23 per cent.

Yet that County Council is permanently controlled by the right wing of the Labour Party, which, in addition to the individual moneybags who hang around it, is the only section of English or Welsh politics to have a large and independent fiscal base, enforceable on pain of imprisonment.

The media have a recurring obsession with "left-wing Labour Councillors", but out of six thousand Labour Councillors in the country, no more than about one in 10 could realistically be so described. They are vanishingly rare on Durham County Council. The Right, and the people who being fundamentally apolitical will side with the Right as required, continue to control pretty much the whole of Labour local government.

That includes the great majority of the most populous local authorities. With their Council Tax. With their business rates. With their pension schemes, looking to invest. With their opportunities for backhanders and freebies. And so on. Most Labour MPs have emerged from that little world, and it has become clear in recent days, as if there had ever been any doubt, that most of them will continue to do so.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Councillor Watch: Day 101

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 136

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Tuesday 22 October 2019

The River Tiber Foaming

Farewell, then, Pachamama.

When Cortés cast down the blood-drenched Aztec idol and replaced it with a tiny statue of Our Lady, then the ground shook with the anguished roar of the demons thus exorcised.

Much the same has happened in the last couple of days.

A Mari Usque Ad Mare?

From Guido to The Guardian, they are rejoicing at the victory of Justin Trudeau. This is why it is called neoliberalism.

It is all of a piece, an economic and social free-for-all in which the "losers" must by definition be morally at fault and the "winners" virtuous.

Malthusian and anti-industrial both at home and abroad. And to be spread across the whole wide earth, by force of arms if necessary.

That is the line, from Guido to The Guardian.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham.

The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Assange In Court

This may be the most important article that you ever read. Read it. Have you read it yet? Read it.

The only MPs to have stood with Julian Assange are Chris Williamson, Kelvin Hopkins, Grahame Morris, the retiring Ann Clwyd, and the retiring Ronnie Campbell.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham.

The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Councillor Watch: Day 100

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 135

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Monday 21 October 2019

Virtus Vera Nobilitas

There is a passage in Nicholas Coleridge's new autobiography in which he describes arriving at Trinity College, Cambridge and being invited, as an Old Etonian, to a reception with the Master. 

There were three such: one for those from major public schools, with champagne; one for those from minors and grammars, with red and white wine (although probably still pretty good red and white wine there); and one for us plebs, with beer and cider. No doubt the food matched the booze, and no doubt the dress code matched them both.

Oh, how I wish that this had existed at Durham in 1997. I would have been perfectly happy with my beer and my meat pie, in my lounge suit. But I can think of others who would also have been so classified, yet who would have insisted that they ought to have been at least black tie and wine, if not white tie and champagne. They would still have been going on about it, 22 years later. And it would have been very, very, very funny.

Then again, 22 years later, I would not be at all surprised if this were once again rather the done thing. And the man responsible would be the man who had become Prime Minister weeks before my arrival at Durham. The very last vestiges of that world ought to have been swept away by the Labour Government that ought to have arrived in the natural course of events in the middle to late 1990s. But we all know what we got instead. As a result, we all know what we have had since, and we all know what we have now.

Most Labour MPs still think that Tony Blair was their party's greatest ever Prime Minister, and most of them are still going to be there after the next General Election. Another hung Parliament is coming, however and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Who Might Come To Hand

The DUP has been in coalition with Sinn Féin for at least 12 years, and arguably for 21. Arlene Foster attended the funeral of Martin McGuinness. People who are expressing their incredulity that the DUP might do a deal with Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell need to get out more.

Likewise those who wonder how the DUP could possibly, in effect, block Brexit. If the Big Man had been dead slightly longer in 2016, then the DUP would have campaigned "reluctantly" for Remain. Its only true aim is that there be a homeland for that minority of Ulster Protestants which looks to the Ulster Revival of 1859, a homeland on as much of Ireland as can be held for the purpose. 

It cares not who holds its homeland, be that the British Army, or the Ulster Resistance that has never so much as declared a ceasefire, or the UDA and the UVF that it is "consulting" right now even though mere membership of either of them is an imprisonable offence, or anyone else who might come to hand at any given time.

And it cares not who pays for its homeland, be that Britain, or be that, too, anyone else who might come to hand at any given time. For example, the European Union, with which it therefore pays to keep in. After all, hours from now, abortion and same-sex marriage will become the law in Northern Ireland, so what has Britain ever done for the Spirit of 1859? The EU could not do any worse.

Such is the party that holds the balance of power in our Parliament. Another hung Parliament is coming, however and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Councillor Watch: Day 99

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 134

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Sunday 20 October 2019

Dealing Ourselves In

So, are the DUP "Remoaners"? Are the Brexit Party? It is Dominic Cummings who has always been on record that he would not countenance No Deal under any circumstances. Not only that, but he has now seen the EU, and he quite fancies it as larger playground for his ego. Married into Northumberland gentry he may be, but he is no Ronnie Campbell.

I do not agree with the Labour MPs who voted with the Government yesterday, but nor do I blame them. This deal, the only one that the EU would ever sign, would tie us forever to the EU's State Aid rules, and to its public procurement requirements. But at the same time, we do not need the EU for workers' rights. For that, we need a British Government that believes in workers' rights. And if we want that Government, then we have to vote for it.

UKIP was supposed to win hundreds of seats and "replace Labour in the North", but where is it now? The Brexit Party is not going to win any seats, either. It will not even hand a few from Labour to the Conservatives, since more than half of its voters at a General Election would have come from the latter. Quite typically, its candidate here at North West Durham policed the Miners' Strike.

No, the big stories are going to be the Labour loses to the Liberal Democrats in London, the Conservative losses to the Lib Dems in the rest of the South, and the Conservatives' loss of most or all of their seats in Scotland to the SNP. Another hung Parliament is coming, therefore, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Petie And The Paedo

Prince Andrew is a person of absolutely no importance. This is the story here. It has been noticed in New York.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham.

The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

The Measures Or Conduct

One can easily imagine the ghastly mid-Atlantic accents of those who are proposing a British version of the Logan Act, under which nobody has been indicted since 1852 and nobody has ever been convicted at all. In fact, some of us do not need to imagine their ghastly mid-Atlantic accents.

For behind Andrea "Wouldn't Have Been Selected If They'd Thought She Might Win" Jenkyns, who would have lost her seat back to Ed Balls if he had put up in 2017, is the Henry Jackson Society. Unlike Jenkyns, the stalwarts of the HJS know perfectly well that the United Kingdom is still part of the EU, so that it is not a foreign power. 

Yet they do not seem to have worked out that they themselves, and the politicians of whom they most approved, would be liable to prosecution under this legislation for their dealings with the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, plus any Guaidó regime that might eventually be installed in Venezuela. Notice the oiliness. Anything but the return to this country's vast reserves of coal.

Indeed, such prosecutions would be necessary only because we were squeamish about treason trials, which would be at least as appropriate. Either way, though, we would be talking about the removal of a huge proportion of our Political Class. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Councillor Watch: Day 98

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 133

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Saturday 19 October 2019

Sign Away?

This is the best reaction to Chris Bryant's rubbish about childcare costs for MPs today. But has any money been paid? Will it be? Permanently controlled by Bryant's fabulously rich right wing of the Labour Party, Durham County Council cut the pay of 472 Teaching Assistants by 27 per cent. How about that for childcare?

You poor pet lamb MPs who cannot put up with a bit of booing, jeering and heckling, some of us have had direct attempts on our lives in our time, and some of us have been living for years under international death threats. Bringing us back to the Labour Right. Although when it comes to the source of the attempt to murder me, then it was a long time ago, and we are all friends now. Call it to the Laura Pidcock Effect. She is nothing if not a unifying force.

Pidcock has been touring the radio and television stations expressing her belief, either that there will never be another Labour or Labour-led Government, or that it would be incapable of legislating for workers' rights. Considering most of the Parliamentary Labour Party, most of whom will be still be there in the next Parliament, then she may have a point. Although in that case it is impossible to see the point of the Shadow Secretary of State for Employment Rights.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Time Is Not A Friend?

This afternoon, Radio Two played Julian Lennon's Saltwater. From 1991. It could have been written today. You see, 28 years later, the Extinction has still not occurred.

For anything up to 90 years, they are going to be telling the story of how, in October 2019, they were ever so slightly roughed up by the Police after they had decided to go ahead with a demonstration that had been banned, in the expectation that the ban had been less than fully meant, so that any breach of it would be let go. The miners, they are not.

And for anything up to 90 years, they are going to be able to tell that story, because the world is still going to be here. But in the meantime, alas, they may well have succeeded in imposing all manner of privations on the rest of its inhabitants.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Councillor Watch: Day 97

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 132

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

From Behind The Curtain

As Tulsi Gabbard replies to crazy old Hillary Clinton's shout at the clouds that Gubbard and Jill Stein are Russian "assets":

Great! Thank you, Hillary Clinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain.

From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.

It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.

She already has. From the outburst that has occasioned this, she is in the race. So she will be the nominee, because the Democratic Party is useless like that. And Donald Trump will beat her a second time.

Friday 18 October 2019

We Should Simply Have Left

This wretched deal would commit us forever to the EU's rules on State Aid and on public procurement, making radical action impossible.

It is also, and for precisely that reason, the only deal that the EU would ever have signed, or would ever sign in the future.

That is why there should never have been one. We should simply have left, from the Left.

Do not say a word against Ronnie Campbell when you should have listened to him from the start.

Political Reasons

Of course American military aid to Ukraine was cut "for political reasons". American or any other military aid to Ukraine or anywhere else is only ever extended in the first place "for political reasons".

If it is seeking to impeach Donald Trump, then the liberal wing of the Democratic Party clearly does not believe that it can beat him at the polls. It's right. It can't.

Too Eager By Far?

Most people do not realise quite how comprehensively devolved Northern Ireland is. Why does the DUP, which yesterday decided that the Good Friday Agreement was sacrosanct after all, regard different tariffs or VAT rates as a threat to the Union when different Social Security benefits are not? The Union is whatever the Parliament of the United Kingdom says that it is at any given time.

The DUP may sincerely believe that it prizes the Union even over Brexit, but it also embodies a tradition, which was always there but which was not given any real prominence until the emergence of the late Ian Paisley, the only true desire of which is for a homeland for the fundamentalist minority of Ulster Protestants in as much of Ireland as could be held for the purpose.

And held by whoever: by the Ulster Resistance that has has never so much as declared as ceasefire, by the UDA and the UVF that are "consulted" despite the fact that mere membership of them is an imprisonable offence, by whoever.

People of that mind are entirely clear-eyed about the fact that that homeland could never pay for itself. Hitherto, they have expected Britain to pay for it. But they are keeping their options open. They know that the United States would flatly refuse any trade agreement with the United Kingdom unless the Irish Republic had approved it. And if the 10 votes of the DUP were just enough to stop Brexit in practice, then the EU would notice, and it would not forget.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

To Have A Chat?

Yes, Ronnie Campbell has an accent. So have you. You may find his funny, but most people find yours hilarious. We can all hear where he got his; we in the North East can do so with great precision. But how on earth you ever came by yours is a complete mystery.

Ignore anyone who claims to know what might happen tomorrow. And do not judge any Labour MP, at least, for voting either way. This deal has a worse political declaration than even Theresa May's had, and it would still tie us to the EU's State Aid and competition rules. But we do not need the EU for workers' rights.

We have been in the EU for 46 years, and we are not exactly living in a workers' paradise. The people and places that would have benefited from that were the people and places whose votes swung the referendum for Leave. If we want workers' rights, then we need a British Government that is committed to them. And if we want such a Government, then we need to elect it.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Councillor Watch: Day 96

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.

The Laura Pidcock Drugs Challenge: Day 131

I have never taken any illegal drug, and I challenge Laura Pidcock MP to say the same.

This post will appear here daily until it has received an answer.

Thursday 17 October 2019

By Hook Or By Crook

But who needs the DUP, anyway? Boris Johnson is relying on enough Labour rebels to get him over the line without them. Next up, then, a "confirmatory referendum". Leading to a Remain vote, because even Remain really would be better than this deal. Johnson will pretend to oppose such a referendum, and he will bellyache on television when the House of Commons voted for it. But he will hold it. He has never really believed in Brexit, anyway.

At one time, Dominic Cummings probably did believe in Brexit. But the thing about megalomaniacs is that no stage or canvas is ever big enough for them. Cummings might have been content with running a post-Brexit Britain, until his move into 10 Downing Street made him aware of the rest of the world, or at least of the EU. So, by hook or by crook, we are not Leaving after all. And then he intends to take over Europe.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Final Demand?

Not for the first time, Ben Sellout has quite some nerve. But the anger over stitched up Labour parliamentary selections continues to grow. "How do they get away with it?" Well, it is almost never mentioned, but in addition to the individual moneybags who hang around the Labour Right, it also has a large and independent fiscal base, enforceable on pain of imprisonment.

The media have a recurring obsession with "left-wing Labour Councillors", but out of six thousand Labour Councillors in the country, no more than about one in 10 could realistically be so described. The Right, and the people who being fundamentally apolitical will side with the Right as required, continue to control pretty much the whole of Labour local government.

That includes the great majority of the most populous local authorities. With their Council Tax. With their business rates. With their pension schemes, looking to invest. With their opportunities for backhanders and freebies, such as the outright corruption of at least one person who has been longlisted for one of the nominations that is arousing controversy. And so on.

Most Labour MPs have emerged from that little world, and it has become clear this week, as if there had ever been any doubt, that most of them will continue to do so. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration.

After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Tunnel Vision?

It is a Yes-No question, "Do you regret the defeat of the miners in 1985?" 

I would use British coal, and nuclear power, to generate the electricity to run the public transport that Extinction Rebellion has today disrupted. If they want to know who does, and who does not, take the Tube, then they need to ask themselves how often, if ever, their own parents do so.

These shenanigans provide a welcome opportunity for me to repeat my invitation to Greta Thunberg, who is highly commended by Laura Pidcock. Moreover, if Ms Pidcock had her way, then Ms Thunberg would already be of voting age.

During the impending General Election campaign, Ms Thunberg's considerable family wealth, and her vast corporate sponsorship, would easily stretch to bringing her here to North West Durham, with its former steel town and with its former pit villages.

In that town and in those villages, she could extol the wonders of deindustrialisation. Then I and others could reply. Come on, Greta. I dare you.

In Wrath

Oh, you fools, you fools. You thought that the DUP were Tories. Cousins rather than siblings, but family all the same. You carried on thinking that even after each of their 10 votes had cost you £100 million, despite the fact that the alternative had been John McDonnell as Chancellor of the Exchequer. In similar vein, Sinn Féin still would not take their seats, not even to make that happen. Take note, those on the Labour Left whose view of Sinn Féin is similar to yours of the DUP.

No, like every other party that is not "the Tories", the DUP was set up specifically not to be "the Tories", in those days in the form of the UUP. Its true view of you, you fools, remains unchanged from 1985: "We hand this woman, Margaret Thatcher, over to the Devil that she might learn not to blaspheme. And oh God, in wrath take vengeance upon this wicked, treacherous, lying woman. Take vengeance upon her, oh Lord."

Councillor Watch: Day 95

I hereby invite all Labour members of Durham County Council who believe me to be guilty of the criminal charges against me to email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com and say so.

I would not be able to reply to those emails, but every day the names of those who had sent them to me would appear here. So far, I have received none.