Wraggtime Blues

William Wragg was much better when he was a folk singer, but perhaps I am getting confused. "Political party does politics" is not the most shocking story that I have ever heard, and if you are capable of being "pressured" or "intimidated" like this, then you should not be politically active. I have a similar reaction when people allege "pork barrel politics". Or, as it is otherwise known, politics.

Today, Richard Holden has had to say that he would not be joining the Labour Party, while Pat Glass has had to say that he would not have been welcome, anyway. Each of them has felt the need to say it. With his fondness for new hospitals and for new railway lines, Richard would in any case have been far too left-wing for Keir Starmer.

Neil Kinnock said that even the broadest church needed walls. Richard would have been outside the Labour Party's left wall with Jeremy Corbyn. There is no right wall, but there never has been, including under Corbyn. Yesterday, even Dehenna Davison had to deny that she was on the cusp of defection. And after Christian Wakeford, why not?

If even Richard Holden is not prepared to be the Labour candidate at North West Durham, then who is? The Constituency Labour Party may or may not know this, but in anticipation of the imposition of a candidate at the last minute by the National Executive Committee due to the failure to produce a local one, other people whose paths have crossed mine over the decades have been seeking to entice all sorts of my old mates, my exes, and so on, in the hope that I might go easy on such a figure. Am I such a sentimental old softie? I am not, and no one knows better than the right-wing Labour Party machine why I am not.