The Targeted Attacks On Christians

Elizabeth Francis writes:

When it comes to international media reporting about India, the 44-day general election process has been taking center stage as the incumbent Narendra Modi seeks a third term as prime minister. The self-declared Hindutva leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party has been unashamed in pushing for his nation to “return” to its Hindu roots; only a few months ago during the inauguration of a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Ram, he declared, “today our Lord Ram has arrived; he has been waiting for centuries.”

The nationally televised comment came against the backdrop of 12 of the 28 states in India having anti-conversion laws that criminalize people who change their religious beliefs, at least half of which have only been enacted during Modi’s administration, and increasing attacks on non-Hindu religious minorities that the government has remained silent to.

Yet India’s ever-fractured religious freedom landscape holds another painful story that has not received the global attention that it demands. From May 3 to 6, the northeastern Indian state of Manipur commemorated one year since a shocking onslaught of violence resulted in hundreds of people being murdered, hundreds of places of worship being destroyed, and tens of thousands of people losing their homes and livelihoods. Although multiple factors underpinned the violence, including longstanding ethnic and tribal tensions and disagreements over ancestral lands, the targeted attacks on Christians cannot be ignored.

Last year, after a peaceful political march quickly escalated and turned deadly between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo peoples, the police had no option but to use tear gas shells to attempt to control the rioters. The Manipur government issued a shoot-at-sight order and deployed thousands of army personnel on the ground as the number of killings, injuries, and burning buildings down increased. The number of internally displaced people who are residing in around 320 relief camps still numbers nearly 60,000.

Witness testimonial evidence presented to a group of government ministers in the International Religious Freedom of Belief Alliance group indicated a specific and intentional focus behind the violence. It was perpetrated largely by people associated with such extremist Hindu groups as the Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun, who targeted both Kuki and Meitei Christians. Their deliberate actions resulted in hundreds of churches belonging to both the Meitei and Kuki peoples being burned to the ground, pastors being forced to convert away from Christianity and renounce their faith, homes of Christians being marked for vandalism or looting, public executions, beheadings, and gang rapes.

Yet the Indian government has had a woefully insufficient response to what has now become a humanitarian disaster, potentially verging on a civil war; it has failed to de-escalate the continuing pockets of violence within Manipur. A year on, we still see Meitei milia personnel looting weapons to inflict damage, killing citizens, and setting off an intentional bomb blast in a Kuki region which damaged yet another church.

Last year, Modi was silent for 70 days before feeling the pressure to make a public statement about the chaos, only after the Supreme Court had shamed the government by calling its response “lethargic.” Now, with the elections as his main priority, Modi continues to “turn a blind eye” to the region.

Thankfully, the international community is speaking out against the undeniable religious persecution factor to the crisis. The European Union and experts from the United Nations have drawn attention to the religious component of the violence, and country politicians have started to respond too. Last month, the UK foreign secretary spoke out against the “clear religious part” to the strife in India, emphasizing the need for religious tolerance in the country.

In the U.S., despite India having been excluded from USCIRF’s Country of Particular Concern list this year, some members of the U.S. Senate have nonetheless not been afraid to condemn the violators of religious freedom and show support for the victims of persecution. In a bipartisan resolution led by Senators Chris Coons of Delaware, James Lankford Oklahoma, Tim Kaine or Virginia, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, the text called upon the U.S. to “leverage all diplomatic and sanctions tools available to the United States Government to hold religious freedom violators accountable for their actions,” and it specifically included the violations in India within its list of countries where the regimes are cracking down on Christians and other religious minorities.

All eyes are on what happens next. If Modi’s BJP wins the election, then the days look darker for religious freedom and protection of the most vulnerable. As for Manipur and the thousands of people whose livelihoods have been unalterably destroyed as they continue to battle sickness, instability, lack of places to worship, and loss of earnings in the relief camps, the international community should do more to affirm that they are not forgotten.

To Witness The Dismal Alternative

I have argued for years and years that EU membership subjected us, and would again, to the legislative will of any and everyone who could find their way onto the Council of Ministers and into the European Parliament; there is a similar problem with NATO, and if anything that is even worse because it is directly about wars. The great Professor Thomas Fazi writes:

With the EU elections less than a month away, one can only imagine the cognitive dissonance that the pro-EU, anti-Brexit crowd must be experiencing. In a curious twist of fate, the EU is turning into everything Remainers feared Brexit would bring to the UK.

For years they’ve been painting Brussels as a beacon of progressivism, peace and democracy, as opposed to the far-Right, racist and economically suicidal project of Brexit. Yet, ironically, it is the European Parliament, not the British one, that is about to swing firmly to the Right, as several European governments already have. Meanwhile, in just over six months, Britain will almost certainly vote Labour back into power — making it one of the few countries in Europe to have a centre-left government.

Across the Irish Sea, by contrast, an anti-immigration backlash has spiralled into country-wide unrest, while several EU governments — and even Ursula von der Leyen’s European People’s Party — are contemplating Rwanda-style asylum deportation deals. Meanwhile, the EU is aggressively cracking down on free speech, both online and offline. Over the past few weeks alone, the police have intervened to break up peaceful assemblies on at least two occasions — a pro-Palestine conference in Berlin and the NatCon conference in Brussels.

On the economic front, Germany, the most important economy in the EU, is mired in stagnation, and facing outright deindustrialisation, along with several other EU countries — all while the EU announces the return of harsh austerity measures. Angry farmers have been laying siege to the bloc’s capitals for months. As for the EU’s “peace project”, all European governments are now on a war footing, while Macron is leading the charge to send Nato troops into Ukraine, lurching Europe closer to an all-out war with Russia.

All this clashes with the Remainers’ rainbow-tinted view of the European Union. But their vision was always predicated on a fantasy: everything that is happening across the Channel is not a betrayal of “EU values”, as they are probably telling themselves — it is an inevitable consequence of the EU’s architecture itself.

Even though Remainers have always tended to view the EU as a bastion of social and workers’ rights, the reality is that the Rightward drift across the EU has its roots in the Brussels-driven assault on the post-war European social and economic model following the 2008 financial crisis. High unemployment rates, stagnant wages and austerity measures implemented in response to the crash exacerbated existing inequalities, fuelling resentment towards the political establishment.

To make things worse, the EU attempted to prevent any democratic backlash to these policies by restricting the scope of democratic decision-making by democratically elected governments, focusing instead on quasi-automatic technocratic rules imposed by undemocratic bodies. The European Union effectively became a sovereign power with the authority to impose budgetary rules and structural reforms on member states — not exactly what you’d expect from the “bastion of democracy” often portrayed by Remainers.

This, however, only exacerbated the disillusion of many Europeans with both mainstream political parties and the EU institutions themselves, which were perceived as beholden to global financial interests and disconnected from the needs of ordinary citizens. Meanwhile, the EU’s handling of the refugee crisis, which peaked in 2015, further galvanised anti-immigrant sentiments and fuelled the rise of Right-wing populist parties across the continent. The influx of migrants, primarily from war-torn regions in the Middle East and North Africa, strained resources, fuelled social tensions and demonstrated once more the failure of the EU’s top-down approach to policymaking — exemplified in this case by the idea of relocation quotas, which several countries refused to comply with.

Today, immigration has once again moved to the forefront of the political debate. The EU’s border agency, Frontex, detected over 350,000 irregular border crossings into the EU last year — the highest total recorded since 2016. EU countries recorded more than 1 million new asylum requests, a 20% increase compared to 2022 — on top of the almost six million refugees taken in from Ukraine since the start of the war. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, to learn that seven out of 10 Europeans believe their country is taking in too many immigrants — and that governments, faced with the prospect of serious social unrest, are running for cover.

On Monday, representatives of several European governments met in Denmark to discuss various types of “durable solutions” to immigration, including plans to relocate asylum seekers to third countries, reminiscent of the UK’s government’s Rwanda scheme. Even more astonishingly, von der Leyen herself admitted in a recent presidential debate of being in favour of third-country migration deals with places such as Tunisia and Egypt, even though this would not be possible under the EU’s recently approved Migration Pact. Ironic, considering that just a year ago several EU governments and senior EU officials were castigating the British government for proposing the exact same policy.

But then consistency has never been a valuable currency in Brussels. On Sunday, it was revealed that von der Leyen is also recrafting her image as a grandmother with “traditional, conservative family values”, in the hope of whitewashing her reputation as a champion of the EU’s green-rainbow agenda. “#ProudGrandma” read her hashtag — though this is likely little more than PR. After all, even as the EU establishment pays lip service to the concerns of ordinary Europeans, to try to contain the popular backlash against its various policy failures, it is also doing what it does best: attempting to subvert democracy.

Today, this doesn’t come primarily in the form of economic governance tools, which are already in place, but rather in the form of narrative control. Over the past few months, EU authorities have been peddling their own “Russiagate” hoax, claiming that that Russia bribed European politicians to spread disinformation and interfere in the upcoming elections. Russia “is using dodgy outlets pretending to be media [and] using money to buy covert influence”, said European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová. “We uncovered a pro-Russian network that was developing an operation to spread Russian influence and undermine security across Europe”, claimed Petr Fiala, the Czech prime minister. However, following an investigation, the head of the Czech intelligence agency admitted that his agency had no information about any bribery scheme.

Even von der Leyen conceded that there is no proof of a Russian bribery network. But don’t expect this to deter the EU from doing exactly what it accuses Russia of doing: interfering in the upcoming elections. On Monday, EU Parliament President Metsola met with 50 pan-European NGOs to thank them for pushing “EU values” ahead of the elections. This followed an announcement that the EU has signed Partnership Agreements with more than 500 NGOs — many at national level — all tasked with promoting EU values ahead of the forthcoming elections. It is, in other words, an explicit attempt to control the official narrative, by designating any communications that don’t conform to the official narrative as “disinformation”.

All of which is to say that, as challenging as Britain’s economic and political challenges may be, the EU’s dysfunctional and increasingly authoritarian nature are evidence of the fact that the UK made the right choice in decoupling from a failing bloc. As much as the British political class failed to address many of the concerns embodied in the Brexit referendum, that vote nonetheless provided a democratic outlet for many of the tensions that are now building up across the EU — and potentially opened up the country to the possibility of democratic national renewal. And if that isn’t justification enough, we need only look to the EU to witness the dismal alternative.

The Safeguarding Challenge: Day 302

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Board of the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency, currently Nazir Afzal, Amanda Ellingworth, Wesley Cuell, Bishop Paul Mason, Sarah Kilmartin, Jenny Holmes, Sir David Behan, and Sr Una Coogan IBVM.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Committee, currently Gail McGregor, Paul Weatherstone, Fr Christopher Hancock MHM, Canon William Agley, Catherine Dyer, Canon Martin Stempczyk, Canon Peter Leighton VG, Maureen Dale, and Tony Lawless.

And that purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Team, currently Meriel Anderson, Ian Colling, Andrew Grant, Kirsty McIntyre, Lisa Short, Yvonne Brown, and Petra Scarr.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide. I should emphasise that there is absolutely no risk that I might ever give anyone the satisfaction of my suicide.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The CPS Challenge: Day 302

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of its organised persecution of the opponents and critics of Keir Starmer, which is its principal national priority.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from contesting the next General Election.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from seeking the position of General Secretary of Unite the Union.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a thinktank 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.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a weekly magazine of news and comment, a monthly cultural review, a quarterly academic journal, and perhaps eventually also a fortnightly satirical magazine.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from taking journalistic, political or other paid work for fear of losing my entitlement to Legal Aid.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service out of the same racism that has caused it to refuse to prosecute the Police Officers in the case of Stephen Lawrence.

And I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to incite my politically motivated murder, a murder that the CPS has already decided would never lead to any prosecution.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Board, currently Monica Burch, Stephen Parkinson, Simon Jeffreys, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan, and Kathryn Stone.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the CPS senior leadership, currently Tristan Bradshaw, Dawn Brodrick, Mike Browne, Steve Buckingham, Matthew Cain, Gregor McGill, Grace Ononiwu, and Baljhit Ubey.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, currently Simon Jeffreys, Stephen Parkinson, Michael Dunn, Deborah Harris, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Nominations, Leadership and Remuneration Committee, currently Kathryn Stone, Stephen Parkinson, and Monica Burch.

And each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the 279 members of staff of the CPS North East Area, by definition including, but not restricted to, Chief Crown Prosecutor Gail Gilchrist, and the Area Business Manager, Ian Brown.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Clergy Challenge: Day 1006

I invite each and every bishop, priest and deacon of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if he thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me.

Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know. The current total is zero.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Representatives Challenge: Day 1006

As already stated on the day after my release: "The instant that Labour lost control of Durham County Council, then I was granted an unsolicited tag for more than 10 weeks of future good behaviour. I invite each and every Member of Parliament for the area covered by Durham County Council, each and every member of Durham County Council, and each and every member of Lanchester Parish Council, to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know." The current total is zero.

Since Lanchester is be moved into North Durham by the boundary changes, I invite each and every other candidate for that parliamentary seat to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. In this case, names most certainly will be published, including as part of my election literature. The current total is zero. If that remained the case when the next General Election was called, then my literature would state that each and all of my opponents, by name, did not think that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. At least in that event, then I challenge Oliver Kamm to contest this seat.

And since I am a candidate for Mayor of the North East Mayoral Combined Authority in 2028, or whenever we could get Kim McGuinness out before that, I invite her and every other candidate for that office to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. In this case, names most certainly will be published, including as part of my election literature. The current total is zero. If that remained the case when the election came, then my literature would state that each and all of my opponents, by name, did not think that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

Black Gold?

Tomorrow, Grahame Morris will lead a Commons debate on the scandal of successive Governments’ direct theft of the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme, which was once so mighty that it owned the Watergate Complex, the ultimate Trustees of which therefore included Arthur Scargill and Mick McGahey. As punishment for the Strike, the miners are now being starved in old age. Like the jaw-dropping Single Justice Procedure, and like the plight of those who were still serving the abolished sentence of imprisonment for public protection, there ought to be an ITV drama on this.

Would a change of Government make any difference? The last Labour Government continued and worsened the robbery of the miners, and it introduced the IPP. It has no policy to abolish the SJP, which is right up the street of someone like its candidate for Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper. Kevan Jones, when is anyone going to be arrested as a result of the Post Office scandal?

But 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 Keir Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

I have no plan to join the Workers Party of Britain, although nor would I expect to stand against it. But if it did not contest North Durham, then I would. 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. But there does need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not. We have made a start.

Nil Desperandum Auspice Deo

Dan Poulter has never voted as a Labour MP, and Natalie Elphicke repeatedly declined to do so this afternoon. People who have been without the whip for years are more reliable than that to the Whips.  In a statement undoubtedly approved by Keir Starmer, and delivered in his presence, Elphicke announced that "The centre ground has been abandoned" by Rishi Sunak, whereas Labour now "occupies the centre ground of British politics". By "the centre ground", she means her own position up to noon today, and indeed still. Starmer agrees.

On the day that Elphicke was welcomed as a non-playing member, the Labour Party centrally has imposed its own choice of Leader on Sunderland City Council because the Leader since 2018, Graeme Miller, had supported the selection of Jamie Driscoll as the Labour candidate for North East Metro Mayor. He had fully supported Kim McGuinness once she had been selected. But he had dared to favour someone else at the selection stage. So, following significant gains for Labour in Sunderland under his Leadership last week, he has been purged by a WhatsApp message from London. How a Leader of the Opposition runs his party is how he would run the country as Prime Minister. We have been warned.

But 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 Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

I have no plan to join the Workers Party of Britain, although nor would I expect to stand against it. But if it did not contest North Durham, then I would. 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. But there does need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not. We have made a start.

Weed Killer

Richard Tice wants to legalise cannabis, Nigel Farage wants to legalise drugs across the board, and Lee Anderson signed a select committee report in that direction last year. But dawn breaks in the east. Two years ago, Thailand became one of the first countries in Asia to legalise the recreational use of cannabis. Today, it announced its intention to recriminalise cannabis by the end of the year.

There cannot be a “free” market in general, but not in drugs, or prostitution, or pornography, or unrestricted alcohol, or unrestricted gambling. That is an important part of why there must not be a “free” market in general, which is a political choice, not a law of nature. Enacting and enforcing laws against drugs, prostitution and pornography, and regulating alcohol, tobacco and gambling, are clear examples of State intervention in, and regulation of, the economy. Radical change would be impossible if the workers, the youth and the poor were in a state of stupefaction, and that baleful situation, which has been contrived in the past, is being contrived again today.

We need a single category of illegal drug, including cannabis, with a crackdown on possession, including a mandatory sentence of two years for a first offence, three years for a second offence, four years for a third offence, and so on. I no longer believe in prison sentences that include the possibility of release in less than 12 months; in that case, then your crime was not bad enough to warrant imprisonment, which the possession of drugs is. We need to restore the specific criminal offence of allowing one’s premises to be used for illegal drug purposes. And Peter Hitchens’s The War We Never Fought should be taught in schools, as pro-drugs propaganda is routinely.

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 Keir Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

I have no plan to join the Workers Party of Britain, although nor would I expect to stand against it. But if it did not contest North Durham, then I would. 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. But there does need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not. We have made a start.

Tired and Chaotic?

Kate Osamor now has the Labour whip with Natalie Elphicke but not with Jeremy Corbyn or Diane Abbott. After Elphicke, they had to give it back to someone on the Left, but it could not have been either of those of whom most people had heard. Shame on Osamor for saying yes.

In 2021, Elphicke was one of three Conservative MPs who were suspended for a day, with another two ordered to apologise to the House, because they had tried to influence the judge in the trial of her then husband, and constituency predecessor, Charlie Elphicke. A former Director of Public Prosecutions welcomes such a person to the Parliamentary Labour Party. Expect his Government to be characterised by such lawless bullying of independent institutions. No one does that quite like the Labour Right. Elphicke should fit right in.

Labour is now the party of absolutely anyone who subscribes to neoconservative foreign policy, no matter what else, if anything, they might happen to think. Neoconservative foreign policy depends on neoliberal economic policy, and is therefore incompatible with the democratic socialism that the Labour Party professes in its constitution, and therefore on Elphicke's new membership card, although conveniently without defining it. If you doubt that incompatibility, then recall the last Labour Government.

Asked on Radio Four yesterday whether she was a socialist, Rachel Reeves replied, "I'm a social democrat", but that turned out to mean the position of Nick Boles, which is easily deduced from the many publications of Policy Exchange and from Boles's own record as a Minister under David Cameron. That rules out those of us who believe in securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends. Although wherever possible some of us have always avoided such terminology as a divisive distraction, all of us used to call that social democracy or democratic socialism depending on the audience. But if the former is now Boles and the latter is now Elphicke, then what are we to call our position when we did have to put a label on it?

Since the monetarist Labour Budget of December 1976, a single political project has governed Britain. All three parties have been in office, but changes of party have been imperceptible from the policies alone. In government, each side has done exactly as the other side would have done if it had stayed in government. It is irrelevant who was the Leader of the Opposition at any given time. A Foot or even a Kinnock Government might have been politically different from Thatcher or Major, but a Callaghan, Healey or Hattersley Government would not have been. A Corbyn, or to an extent even an Ed Miliband, Government might have been politically different from Cameron, May or Johnson, but a Brown and then a Balls or a David Miliband Government would not have been.

William Hague and Michael Howard did not even pretend that they would have been politically different from Tony Blair, and a Government in which John Major had held on until he had felt like handing over to Ken Clarke certainly would not have been on anything apart for hereditary peers and foxhunting. In 2005 and 2010, with everything else going on in Britain and the world, one third of such people as campaigned for the Conservative Party did so only on the issue of foxhunting. That passed for politics when I was in my twenties and early thirties. Here we are again. Complete with Peter Mandelson.

Mandelson is never asked about his two separate resignations for corruption or about his very close friendship with the world's most notorious sex trafficker, who improbably committed suicide in an American supermax cell. I carry no candle for the Greens, but are they prepared to do what no one else apart from George Galloway will, and hit back at Mandelson? 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 Keir Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

I have no plan to join the Workers Party of Britain, although nor would I expect to stand against it. But if it did not contest North Durham, then I would. 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. But there does need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not. We have made a start.

Planning and Skills?

Oddly enough, Nick Boles took over Quentin Davies's seat. But was Boles a successful Minister first for Planning and then for Skills? Thanks to him, are we living in a global centre of excellence in those areas? Yet Rachel Reeves expects us to be impressed that she is introduced by him. As with Dan Poulter, in the way that if you look at the key but largely unseen advisory positions, then the Biden Administration turns out to be the Bush Administration, so if you looked at the key but largely unseen advisory positions, then a Starmer Government would turn out to be the Coalition of the austerity programme and of the war in Libya, in a competitive field the worst neoconservative war of them all so far.

But 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 Keir Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

I have no plan to join the Workers Party of Britain, although nor would I expect to stand against it. But if it did not contest North Durham, then I would. 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. But there does need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not. We have made a start.

Raise The Voice

More fool Mothin Ali for responding at all, never mind apologising. He and the Greens have paid the Danegeld, so now they will never get rid of the Dane. Councillor Ali's capitulation was particularly regrettable on the day of Shaima Dallali's victory over the National Union of Students, and behind it the "Campaign Against Antisemitism" of the discredited and disowned Gideon Falter.

As for the supposedly peaceable Greens, they support NATO and the war in Ukraine. They also used to want to ban halal meat until the Board of Deputies, making itself useful for once, pointed out that on the same principles they would also have had to have banned kosher meat. But that alone was why they changed tack. The signs were there. By the way, I have always wanted to try kosher meat. I was amazed to learn that there was no restaurant in Gateshead.

Is it because all media are now state-licensed, either by Ofcom or via the measures that have been adopted to stop anyone from saving the Daily Telegraph, that there is silence about the Israeli ban on Al Jazeera? Here is its documentary about the 7th October attacks. Please share that far and wide, along with The Labour Files, of which the third episode is The Hierarchy, about the hierarchy of racism in the Labour Party. That won the Gold Award for documentaries at the New York Festivals TV and Film Awards. Those awards, those festivals and that city may be many things, but they are not anti-Semitic. Although Keir Starmer presumably thinks that they are. As must the Green Party.

But 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 have no plan to join the Workers Party of Britain, although nor would I expect to stand against it. But if it did not contest North Durham, then I would. 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. But there does need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not. We have made a start.

The Safeguarding Challenge: Day 301

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Board of the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency, currently Nazir Afzal, Amanda Ellingworth, Wesley Cuell, Bishop Paul Mason, Sarah Kilmartin, Jenny Holmes, Sir David Behan, and Sr Una Coogan IBVM.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Committee, currently Gail McGregor, Paul Weatherstone, Fr Christopher Hancock MHM, Canon William Agley, Catherine Dyer, Canon Martin Stempczyk, Canon Peter Leighton VG, Maureen Dale, and Tony Lawless.

And that purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Team, currently Meriel Anderson, Ian Colling, Andrew Grant, Kirsty McIntyre, Lisa Short, Yvonne Brown, and Petra Scarr.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide. I should emphasise that there is absolutely no risk that I might ever give anyone the satisfaction of my suicide.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The CPS Challenge: Day 301

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of its organised persecution of the opponents and critics of Keir Starmer, which is its principal national priority.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from contesting the next General Election.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from seeking the position of General Secretary of Unite the Union.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a thinktank 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.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a weekly magazine of news and comment, a monthly cultural review, a quarterly academic journal, and perhaps eventually also a fortnightly satirical magazine.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from taking journalistic, political or other paid work for fear of losing my entitlement to Legal Aid.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service out of the same racism that has caused it to refuse to prosecute the Police Officers in the case of Stephen Lawrence.

And I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to incite my politically motivated murder, a murder that the CPS has already decided would never lead to any prosecution.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Board, currently Monica Burch, Stephen Parkinson, Simon Jeffreys, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan, and Kathryn Stone.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the CPS senior leadership, currently Tristan Bradshaw, Dawn Brodrick, Mike Browne, Steve Buckingham, Matthew Cain, Gregor McGill, Grace Ononiwu, and Baljhit Ubey.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, currently Simon Jeffreys, Stephen Parkinson, Michael Dunn, Deborah Harris, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Nominations, Leadership and Remuneration Committee, currently Kathryn Stone, Stephen Parkinson, and Monica Burch.

And each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the 279 members of staff of the CPS North East Area, by definition including, but not restricted to, Chief Crown Prosecutor Gail Gilchrist, and the Area Business Manager, Ian Brown.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Clergy Challenge: Day 1005

I invite each and every bishop, priest and deacon of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if he thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me.

Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know. The current total is zero.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Representatives Challenge: Day 1005

As already stated on the day after my release: "The instant that Labour lost control of Durham County Council, then I was granted an unsolicited tag for more than 10 weeks of future good behaviour. I invite each and every Member of Parliament for the area covered by Durham County Council, each and every member of Durham County Council, and each and every member of Lanchester Parish Council, to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know." The current total is zero.

Since Lanchester is be moved into North Durham by the boundary changes, I invite each and every other candidate for that parliamentary seat to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. In this case, names most certainly will be published, including as part of my election literature. The current total is zero. If that remained the case when the next General Election was called, then my literature would state that each and all of my opponents, by name, did not think that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. At least in that event, then I challenge Oliver Kamm to contest this seat.

And since I am a candidate for Mayor of the North East Mayoral Combined Authority in 2028, or whenever we could get Kim McGuinness out before that, I invite her and every other candidate for that office to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. In this case, names most certainly will be published, including as part of my election literature. The current total is zero. If that remained the case when the election came, then my literature would state that each and all of my opponents, by name, did not think that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Safeguarding Challenge: Day 300

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Board of the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency, currently Nazir Afzal, Amanda Ellingworth, Wesley Cuell, Bishop Paul Mason, Sarah Kilmartin, Jenny Holmes, Sir David Behan, and Sr Una Coogan IBVM.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Committee, currently Gail McGregor, Paul Weatherstone, Fr Christopher Hancock MHM, Canon William Agley, Catherine Dyer, Canon Martin Stempczyk, Canon Peter Leighton VG, Maureen Dale, and Tony Lawless.

And that purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Team, currently Meriel Anderson, Ian Colling, Andrew Grant, Kirsty McIntyre, Lisa Short, Yvonne Brown, and Petra Scarr.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide. I should emphasise that there is absolutely no risk that I might ever give anyone the satisfaction of my suicide.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The CPS Challenge: Day 300

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of its organised persecution of the opponents and critics of Keir Starmer, which is its principal national priority.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from contesting the next General Election.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from seeking the position of General Secretary of Unite the Union.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a thinktank 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.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a weekly magazine of news and comment, a monthly cultural review, a quarterly academic journal, and perhaps eventually also a fortnightly satirical magazine.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from taking journalistic, political or other paid work for fear of losing my entitlement to Legal Aid.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service out of the same racism that has caused it to refuse to prosecute the Police Officers in the case of Stephen Lawrence.

And I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to incite my politically motivated murder, a murder that the CPS has already decided would never lead to any prosecution.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Board, currently Monica Burch, Stephen Parkinson, Simon Jeffreys, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan, and Kathryn Stone.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the CPS senior leadership, currently Tristan Bradshaw, Dawn Brodrick, Mike Browne, Steve Buckingham, Matthew Cain, Gregor McGill, Grace Ononiwu, and Baljhit Ubey.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, currently Simon Jeffreys, Stephen Parkinson, Michael Dunn, Deborah Harris, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Nominations, Leadership and Remuneration Committee, currently Kathryn Stone, Stephen Parkinson, and Monica Burch.

And each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the 279 members of staff of the CPS North East Area, by definition including, but not restricted to, Chief Crown Prosecutor Gail Gilchrist, and the Area Business Manager, Ian Brown.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Clergy Challenge: Day 1004

I invite each and every bishop, priest and deacon of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if he thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me.

Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know. The current total is zero.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Representatives Challenge: Day 1004

As already stated on the day after my release: "The instant that Labour lost control of Durham County Council, then I was granted an unsolicited tag for more than 10 weeks of future good behaviour. I invite each and every Member of Parliament for the area covered by Durham County Council, each and every member of Durham County Council, and each and every member of Lanchester Parish Council, to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know." The current total is zero.

Since Lanchester is be moved into North Durham by the boundary changes, I invite each and every other candidate for that parliamentary seat to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. In this case, names most certainly will be published, including as part of my election literature. The current total is zero. If that remained the case when the next General Election was called, then my literature would state that each and all of my opponents, by name, did not think that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. At least in that event, then I challenge Oliver Kamm to contest this seat.

And since I am a candidate for Mayor of the North East Mayoral Combined Authority in 2028, or whenever we could get Kim McGuinness out before that, I invite her and every other candidate for that office to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. In this case, names most certainly will be published, including as part of my election literature. The current total is zero. If that remained the case when the election came, then my literature would state that each and all of my opponents, by name, did not think that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

46 Weeks On

Nominations have been closed for 45 weeks, so when is the election?

If you know, you know.

Here First

Israel has rejected the ceasefire deal that Hamas has accepted, and it is defying the United States over Rafah. Since you read it here first that there would be what was now the universally predicted or threatened hung Parliament, so you are now reading it here first that when that hung Parliament came, then every stop would be pulled out to form a coalition between the two parties that unconditionally supported Israel, including with British arms.

Those are the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, which have no political difference, and which are socially and professionally interchangeable at Westminster level, facts that are inextricably bound up with each other. Israel is only a small part of why those who want this coalition do so, and do so very badly, although it is not as if they would have any difficulty creating it. For all ideological and most practical purposes, it already exists.

Ignore the purely ritual opening line of today's Times leader. The article's point is that it welcomes "Labour's return to the political mainstream", defined simply as the present Government. Thus is gazetted the fact that the deal is done. The fix is in. The stocks are sold, the Press is squared, the middle class is quite prepared.

Coalitions between Labour and the Conservatives have always been routine in local government. They have been of variable quality, but one of them did secure the Leadership of Derby City Council for Chris Williamson. This would not be like that. But should we suffer the Red-Blue Cabinet the complete membership list of which has no doubt already been circulated, then we would have the opportunity to test the uniparty to destruction. It would have nowhere to hide.

No one's mind has ever been changed by John Swinney. Instead, accept no imitations. 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 Keir Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

I have no plan to join the Workers Party of Britain, although nor would I expect to stand against it. But if it did not contest North Durham, then I would. 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, if not immediately, then after the glorious collapse of the Grand Coalition. But there does need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not. We have made a start.

The Safeguarding Challenge: Day 299

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Board of the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency, currently Nazir Afzal, Amanda Ellingworth, Wesley Cuell, Bishop Paul Mason, Sarah Kilmartin, Jenny Holmes, Sir David Behan, and Sr Una Coogan IBVM.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Committee, currently Gail McGregor, Paul Weatherstone, Fr Christopher Hancock MHM, Canon William Agley, Catherine Dyer, Canon Martin Stempczyk, Canon Peter Leighton VG, Maureen Dale, and Tony Lawless.

And that purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Team, currently Meriel Anderson, Ian Colling, Andrew Grant, Kirsty McIntyre, Lisa Short, Yvonne Brown, and Petra Scarr.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide. I should emphasise that there is absolutely no risk that I might ever give anyone the satisfaction of my suicide.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The CPS Challenge: Day 299

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of its organised persecution of the opponents and critics of Keir Starmer, which is its principal national priority.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from contesting the next General Election.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from seeking the position of General Secretary of Unite the Union.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a thinktank 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.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a weekly magazine of news and comment, a monthly cultural review, a quarterly academic journal, and perhaps eventually also a fortnightly satirical magazine.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from taking journalistic, political or other paid work for fear of losing my entitlement to Legal Aid.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service out of the same racism that has caused it to refuse to prosecute the Police Officers in the case of Stephen Lawrence.

And I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to incite my politically motivated murder, a murder that the CPS has already decided would never lead to any prosecution.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Board, currently Monica Burch, Stephen Parkinson, Simon Jeffreys, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan, and Kathryn Stone.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the CPS senior leadership, currently Tristan Bradshaw, Dawn Brodrick, Mike Browne, Steve Buckingham, Matthew Cain, Gregor McGill, Grace Ononiwu, and Baljhit Ubey.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, currently Simon Jeffreys, Stephen Parkinson, Michael Dunn, Deborah Harris, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Nominations, Leadership and Remuneration Committee, currently Kathryn Stone, Stephen Parkinson, and Monica Burch.

And each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the 279 members of staff of the CPS North East Area, by definition including, but not restricted to, Chief Crown Prosecutor Gail Gilchrist, and the Area Business Manager, Ian Brown.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Clergy Challenge: Day 1003

I invite each and every bishop, priest and deacon of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if he thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me.

Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know. The current total is zero.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Representatives Challenge: Day 1003

As already stated on the day after my release: "The instant that Labour lost control of Durham County Council, then I was granted an unsolicited tag for more than 10 weeks of future good behaviour. I invite each and every Member of Parliament for the area covered by Durham County Council, each and every member of Durham County Council, and each and every member of Lanchester Parish Council, to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know." The current total is zero.

Since Lanchester is be moved into North Durham by the boundary changes, I invite each and every other candidate for that parliamentary seat to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. In this case, names most certainly will be published, including as part of my election literature. The current total is zero. If that remained the case when the next General Election was called, then my literature would state that each and all of my opponents, by name, did not think that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. At least in that event, then I challenge Oliver Kamm to contest this seat.

And since I am a candidate for Mayor of the North East Mayoral Combined Authority in 2028, or whenever we could get Kim McGuinness out before that, I invite her and every other candidate for that office to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. In this case, names most certainly will be published, including as part of my election literature. The current total is zero. If that remained the case when the election came, then my literature would state that each and all of my opponents, by name, did not think that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

Is That Rite?

Happy Easter in the Julian Calendar.

Is the school-based catechesis better in the Eastern Catholic Churches because the priests' own children received it? I do hope so. But does anyone know?

Life Moves Pretty Fast?

Hadley Freeman is being given a richly deserved reception for her pastiche. The Guardian made this fashion writer a political commentator as part of its campaign to take down the man who had called its bluff on higher taxes for public services and who had scared it out of its wits by taking 40 per cent of the vote on that platform. Taxes have gone up far more than he ever suggested, so ha ha ha to that. But I do not know what UnHerd’s excuse is. Freeman is the herd.

The “Labour anti-Semitism” hoax was what delegitimised the use of the State to bring about greater economic equality, so it could never be let go, no matter how bored even UnHerd readers became of it. Freeman is peddling the line that “everyone accused of rape should be convicted”, and the kind of lurid allegations that used to be made by those of that mind against white working-class men in Britain during the panic about Satanic ritual abuse. The same tendency has copied and pasted that old file in the expectation that respectable persons would believe such things against Darkie as they were once expected to believe them against Pleb. That tendency has been a major driver of this century’s wars of choice, always on essentially the same grounds. This is who you would be lining up with if you accepted the accounts of 7th October such as apparently featured in a video that we commoners were not allowed to see. We commoners see perfectly clearly.

The most basic of checks would have confirmed that the mural, and the wreath, and the “not understanding English irony”, and the “friends from Hamas and Hezbollah”, and all the rest of those, were complete dross, as everyone who did bother to check did find out. The Equality and Human Rights Commission found precisely two cases in its entire report, neither of them involved Jeremy Corbyn or indeed anyone who was still a member of the Labour Party, and even in relation to those, it was found in court that it was, “arguable that the Defendant [the EHRC] made an error of law in relation to Article 10 ECHR.”

Rather than defend that at judicial review, the EHRC settled with Ken Livingstone, whom it had continued to pursue despite knowing that he had Alzheimer’s disease, and with Pam Bromley. As a matter of record, “Labour anti-Semitism” never existed. But it does now. Labour has expelled more Jews under Keir Starmer than under all its previous Leaders put together, most or all of them for what has been found to be the protected characteristic of anti-Zionism; there would not be enough time left in this Parliament to change the law on that. It is no wonder that Andrew Feinstein is standing against the Leader who has turned Labour into an anti-Semitic party.

Every week, listen to Starmer and Rishi Sunak “clashing” under parliamentary privilege over whether or not Starmer had tried to put an anti-Semite into Downing Street, and whether or not he had changed the Labour Party from one in which anti-Semitism had been “rife”. Pure fiction, but what else would they have to “clash” over? If they have any point of political disagreement, then it is that Sunak has not handed over the health portfolio to someone who was still a paid lobbyist for the privatisation of the NHS, but had appointed a Foreign Secretary who was at least occasionally willing to criticise Israel.

Freeman expects us to defer to David Baddiel, who wrote last year that J. Robert Oppenheimer should have been played by a Jew. The derision was as predictable as it was correct. At the same time, David Harewood’s otherwise excellent documentary on blackface ended with the fading away, since it was never cancelled, of The Black and White Minstrel Show. But Little Britain started on television seven years after the end of Fantasy Football League. Baddiel had single-handedly brought back blackface, which had not been seen on British television in a good 10 years.

Until then, blackface had not been acceptable in the 1990s, even among the white people by whom I was almost entirely surrounded while growing up. Or if it was, then it must have been a class thing. Certainly, the reaction of Fantasy Football League’s studio audience to Baddiel’s first impersonation of Jason Lee included an audible element of heavy shock. If blacking up was mainstream entertainment, then who else was doing it? Baddiel gave it an extra decade of life.

Baddiel has been in two comedy partnerships, and in both cases the other bloke has been the funny one. For many years, he hardly appeared except as a guest on one of Frank Skinner’s shows. In his late fifties, he wants to reinvent himself as a public intellectual by taking up a cause that placed him beyond criticism. He has therefore had to go through the motions of apologising in person to Lee. Even then, though, he still managed to present himself as somehow the victim.

But the world moves on, and even Baddiel’s old mates from football are having none of it. So now he accuses them of “trolling” him due to “white guilt”. He calls them, “That enemy. They’re white, heterosexual men, desperately trying to show solidarity, as they see it, with black people.” He knows that it is over. We are within sight of getting rid of this public nuisance once and for all.

As well as Freeman and Baddiel, see also those likewise elevated to heavyweight public intellectual status by this almost admirable grift. Although her character would be due for release from prison around about next year, Tracy-Ann Oberman was in EastEnders 20 years ago, and that is about it beyond having lost a libel action for having accused an academic specialist in the field of maintaining “a Jew blocklist”.

Rachel Riley is the glamorous assistant on a gameshow, when she is not purveying the complete lie that, “We now know that there was a pregnant woman who had her belly cut open. The baby was removed from her stomach and beheaded in front of her.” We know no such thing, yet Riley continues to be booked, while Sangita Myska has been replaced with Vanessa Feltz of The Big Breakfast and of What Are These Strawberries Doing on My Nipples? I Need Them for the Fruit Salad. That would not be the mark of a serious news operation even if Feltz had not just left a station that had been forced to go online-only. Nor is it a mark of seriousness to publish Hadley Freeman.

Equivalent Vote Share

The only poll ever published for the North East Mayoral Election showed a statistical tie, yet four days later Kim McGuinness, who had not really campaigned at all, beat Jamie Driscoll by 58,399 votes, which was 13.1 per cent. Both Susan Hall's supporters who maintain that there was rigging, and her opponents who bemoan the selection of a figure of the racist and abusive Far Right as the candidate of one of the two main parties, are looking in the wrong place.

But the first point hardly matters. Central government invented the position for Jamie, and it does not plan on working with McGuinness to any extent beyond that of absolute necessity. Whether it did or it did not, she is going to become colossally unpopular very quickly indeed, and remain so for the whole of her time in office, which need not necessarily be awfully long. I shall be a candidate at the next North East Mayoral Election, whenever it came.

In five weeks, and having been excluded both from the BBC's televised debate and from the opinion polls, Akhmed Yakoob took himself to 69,621 votes in the West Midlands, 11.7 per cent, coming third as Richard Parker won by a mere 1508. Candidates of Yakoob's mind would change the whole game in that region's many marginal seats, and in many more that had not been considered marginal.

Under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour had 37 seats on Bristol City Council, and the Greens had 11. Under Keir Starmer, Labour has 21, but the Greens have 34, now including every seat in the new Bristol Central constituency that is to be contested by Thangam Debbonaire. In 2018, Labour held 53 of the 54 seats in South Tyneside. Today, it holds only 28, with 15 Independents and 11 Greens. And so on.

My trade union, Unite, is "considering" a "review" of some of its funding of the Labour Party at the imminent General Election "if"  that party did something that it had already done, namely abandon its commitment to workers' rights. That went as unremarked as the promise to keep the fraudulent Rwanda Plan, the kickbacks from which would therefore flow to Labour as now to the Conservatives, and the hint, at something clearly already agreed upon, of an ongoing role for David Cameron to match the bipartisan assurance of a role for Peter Mandelson no matter who had officially won. On all of these points, we shrug our shoulders and ask to be told something that we did not know.

But at 34 per cent, Labour's national equivalent vote share is only seven points ahead of the Conservatives'. It would need to be twice that for an overall majority of one. 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 have no plan to join the Workers Party of Britain, although nor would I expect to stand against it. But if it did not contest North Durham, then I would. 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. But there does need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not. We have made a start.