Worth A Shot?

Frank Hester wronged Diane Abbott, so it is to her that he should apologise, and it for her to say whether or not the matter was closed. See also Kim McGuinness, whose apology was accepted by Keir Starmer even though she had not racially abused him.

The words "The Labour Party Candidate" will appear on the ballot paper next to Abbott's name at Hackney North and Stoke Newington, yet the Workers Party of Britain will not be fielding a candidate against her. It has also stood down for Faiza Shaheen, who was the Labour candidate at Chingford and Woodford Green until last Wednesday, and who had wanted to remain so. It has stood down for Independents who were complete political novices, and for opponents of Brexit, for supporters of gender self-identification, for Red-Greens, and so on.

It may have candidates of its own who fell into one or more of those categories. Its candidate here at North Durham materialised out of thin air this week, and he is standing purely against Luke Akehurst. In more than 30 years of political activism in this neck of the woods, I have never heard of him, and nor has anyone else. I have checked, because I can. His crowdfunder is based in Birmingham, and his leaflet calls him "A Strong Voice for Durham", but the name of North Durham refers to the county. When people from County Durham say "Durham", then we mean the city, which is not in this constituency.

My candidacy at this General Election has existed since before the last one. The people who have created the Workers Party have known about it since before they did so. I gave them a long time to come up with a candidate for whom I would have stood aside, but they did not. With days to go, they have sprung this. My nomination papers have been in for two days, and my candidacy has been certified valid. Has the Workers Party candidate's paperwork been submitted? Anyone in the Workers Party who agreed more with Ben Sellers than with me is either hopelessly naïve or an entryist. There has also been a crowdfunder for leaflets purely against Akehurst rather than in support of another candidate. Those would be illegal, as would be the transfer of any monies from that crowdfunder to another candidate, for whom they would not have been raised.

There is still no sign of a Conservative candidate at North Durham, so if you wanted to vote for someone whom the Labour Party had expelled and banned for life nearly 20 years ago, spent several years sending to prison and was trying to do so again, but who had apparently also been disowned by George Galloway, then I am your man. By the way, George ought of course to be in tomorrow evening's televised debate, and he ought to picket it if he were not. But even so.

When I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

I am standing for Parliament as an Independent here at North Durham. To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.