Blue Skies Thinking

Of course George Galloway will be voting for his Conservative constituency MSP, and for the All for Unity list with himself on it, in order to defeat Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP. He has long advocated a vote for the best placed anti-SNP candidate and for that list.

But oh, the shrieking. "The Tories! The Tories! The Tories!" Well, I hate to have to tell you this, but that one lost its power to frighten a long time ago, during a three-term Labour Government that was more right-wing than the Tories.

The miners, you say? If the Labour Party had not betrayed them, then the miners would have won. And in the present day rather than in the fairly distant past, Labour is about to vote against a Conservative Government's very modest increase in corporation tax.

But keep running along the Red Wall screeching, "The Tories! The Tories! The Tories!" And wondering why today you were on 36 points to their 43, enough to devastate your municipal base on 6th May.

That brings me to the greatest regret of my quarter-century, now concluded, in electoral politics. In 2016, I should have thought to ask George to contest Chester-le-Street West Central at the elections to Durham County Council in 2017. That could have been arranged, and of course he would have won, depriving the Leader of his seat.

Look what they did to me for it, and what they are still doing, but in 2017 I advocated voting for the best placed candidate to defeat Labour in each ward of Durham County Council. Had people done that, then the Teaching Assistants would have won. 

The Independents and the Liberal Democrats had voted for the Teaching Assistants, while the Conservatives had abstained. The monumental wrong against them had been perpetrated solely by the Labour Party. But "The Tories! The Tories! The Tories!" And people wonder why I am never going to contest another election to anything.