"Because There's No One Else"?

That was the motto of the Labour Party before Jeremy Corbyn, and it is again. Hence the persistence of Kim McGuinness. It is always worth posting these questions.

Paul Brannen is a trouper who has been taking one for the team for decades. But in his sixties, he could probably do without a last hurrah as the candidate who, in a First Past the Post election that treated Northumberland, County Durham, and Tyne and Wear as a single unit, came third behind a Tory. While that second place should ice the cake of McGuinness's fall, the cherry on top should be her replacement with Nicu Ion as Northumbria's Police and Crime Commissioner.

I do not want McGuinness to withdraw. I want Jamie Driscoll to defeat her like that, taking more than 50 per cent of the votes cast. More Labour Party members in the North East are going to vote for him than for her, and that is before we start about levy-paying trade unionists. Nevertheless, to demand answers to the above questions and to object to this racist candidate, there ought to be demonstrations outside Labour Central, Kings Manor, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 6PA; and outside the PCC's office at Victory House, Balliol Business Park, Benton Lane, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE12 8EW. If Labour Central must be in Newcastle upon Tyne, then the Labour Party's website should at least lose the hyphens that it has incorrectly added to the city's name.

For all that they have been heavily criminalised by cross-party consensus, protests are having a good season. Two people, one sixth of those arrested, have been charged in relation to Saturday's march of at least a quarter of a million for a ceasefire in Gaza. One with failing to remove a face covering when required, and the other with obstructing a constable. So much for inciting racial hatred. So much for support for a proscribed terrorist organisation. So much for assaulting emergency workers. Specifically, so much for assaulting the Police. Only the other side, such as it is, does those things. No doubt "Tommy Robinson" would also bring his fellow specimens of the master race to demonstrate against those who wished to express their distaste at McGuinness. I for one am already looking forward to a grand day out.