Right Out

I have known Jonathan Ashworth for more than 20 years, and he has devoted his life to the Labour Party. When he says that it might be finished, then you ought to listen.

Today's startling revelation is that the right-wing Labour machine is as bent a nine bob note. The North East recoils in horrified disbelief. But Keir Starmer is on course to win, all the same.

And that is fine by those of us who would cheerfully see the Labour Party reduced to competing with the Liberal Democrats for no more than 50 seats as the third party in the House of Commons behind the SNP. Or, on which see below, as the fourth party in the House of Commons behind the SNP.

Whereas the Right on the other side is an irrelevance, ranting impotently about Huawei while the Government plans a mansion tax and the abolition of higher rate tax relief on pension contributions. The reshuffle and the Budget both loom, as does Ken Clarke's peerage.

While Jonathan (he was never called Jon, that I can recall) was telling Anne McElvoy that this might be the end of the Labour Party, Michael Gove was telling her that the results of the General Election meant that the Conservatives were no longer only the party of "the winners from globalisation, and the already wealthy".

Boris Johnson's choice of enormous infrastructure projects may be opportunistic, although none the worse for that to those of us who are going to benefit from them, but his dedication to the cause goes back at least a dozen years. Internationally, he is the least pro-American Prime Minister since the War. And socially, he is far and away the most liberal Prime Minister ever, with the startling private life to prove it, as well as the two elections as Mayor of London.

But here along the old Red Wall, we have no intention of merely exchanging the Labour Right's one-party state for the Conservative Party's one-party state. The Conservatives must face the competition in which they profess to believe. There is also an emerging possibility in London, suggested by Aditya Chakrabortty, and hinted at, although blink and you would miss it, even by Nick Cohen.

Therefore, ours is the 2020 Vision of a new political party, a new think tank, a new weekly newspaper, a new fortnightly satirical magazine, a new monthly cultural review, a new quarterly academic journal, and so much else besides. I will be standing for Parliament again here at North West Durham next time, so please give generously. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.