Not Lost In Space

I am an enthusiastic supporter of the space exploration that came up at today's Prime Minister's Questions. I would balance the British spaceport in the North of Scotland with another in the South Atlantic. St Helena is nicer than Ascension Island, which is a fairly desolate place. But Ascension is closer to the Equator. And the situation there could do with some coverage. The community there has been roundly abused.

All in all, then, while I am strongly critical of the present Indian Government, I am very happy for India on becoming a space superpower. But we do need the specification in the Statute Law that the United Kingdom's aid to any given country be reduced by the exact cost of any space programme, or of any nuclear weapons programme, or of any nuclear submarine programme, or of any foreign aid budget of that country's own, but with the money thus saved remaining within the budget of the Department for International Development, and with the 0.7 per cent target still resolutely intact.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. It has become a local commonplace that I am on 30-30-30 with Labour and the Conservatives here at North West Durham, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post. I will stand for this seat, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

Yaxley-Lennon Watch: Day 124

I warmly welcome Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who calls himself "Tommy Robinson" but who would have to give his real name on the ballot paper, as the UKIP candidate for this parliamentary seat of North West Durham. Or, at any rate, as a candidate for this seat, of any party or none.

Either that, or he is running scared of the white working class. After all, I am mixed-race, and the sitting MP, who will presumably be the Labour candidate, has a mixed-race child. We are both impeccably middle-class (Google the house prices in Riding Mill, whence she hails), as the Conservative and the Liberal Democrat candidates will doubtless also be. 

From his own point of view, then, beating us ought to be a doddle.

Not that my candidacy is in any way conditional on his. Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. I will stand for this parliamentary seat of North West Durham, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

This post will appear here daily until Yaxley-Lennon officially runs away with his tail between his legs by denying that he is a parliamentary candidate for North West Durham.

Pidcock-Kamm Watch: Day 125

Either Laura Pidcock is proud that she is now Oliver Kamm's endorsed candidate for this parliamentary seat of North West Durham, or she will tweet the following:

"I reject the endorsement of @OliverKamm, and I have made a donation to @NeilClark66's legal fund against him," followed by the link to Neil's fund.

This post will appear here daily until that tweet has been posted.

Henig Watch: Day 131

Rather magnanimously, considering how he became the Leader of Durham County Council in the first place, the Durham Miners' Association has permitted Simon "Third Generation Who's Who Entrants Are Above The Law" Henig to sit on the platform of the last two Durham Miners' Galas.

On both occasions, he has of course shared that platform with the principal speaker, Jeremy Corbyn. It is therefore the least to be expected that @SimonHenig will tweet the simple formula, ".@jeremycorbyn is not an anti-Semite." This post will appear here daily until that tweet has been posted.

Councillor Watch: Day 132

Hilariously, the third attempt to put me on trial is due to begin on 1st April. That will be one year after the second failed attempt, and two years after I was charged. 

The only purpose of this whole business has been to stop me from standing for Durham County Council (failed), to stop me from being elected (succeeded, because nothing else would have done), and to stop me from standing for Parliament (also doomed to fail, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign).

No one, absolutely no one at all, has ever suggested that I committed the acts alleged, or even that those acts ever really took place.

Specifically, until such time as they notify otherwise to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, then it is a matter of record that not only does every member of Durham County Council believe me to be innocent of the charges against me, but every member of Durham County Council believes that the acts alleged never happened in actual fact.

This post will appear here daily until further notice.

Disclosure Watch: Day 23

There is now less than a week to go until the third attempt to put me on trial is theoretically supposed to begin, a year after the second one and two years after I was charged. But there has still been no disclosure. 

Despite the supposedly open-and-shut case against me, my trial is expected to last "five days plus". It is now impossible to construct a defence to a case the presentation of which must therefore be expected to take at least two and a half working days, which is around 20 hours.

Like everything else, the morning of 1st April is the choice of the Crown. And it is most apposite for what the Crown is going to have to do at Durham Crown Court. Unless it is going to humiliate itself yet further by requesting a third "postponement". Is it? Might it stand even the slightest chance of being granted such a thing?

Beyond The Black Mountain

The scene of last night's racial abuse of the England football team was once called Titograd.

It was named after a man so Anglophile and so pro-British that at his funeral, Margaret Thatcher laid a wreath. Don't let that put you off him, though.

But 20 years ago last night, and tonight, and for many more nights yet, we bombed his former capital in order to ensure that his blackshirted enemies would win in the end.

And 20 years on from that, there were those scenes in the city that had once born his name. The capital city of what is now a NATO member state. Soon to be joined by Ukraine.

Not even Jeremy Corbyn is fully opposed to this. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it.

It has become a local commonplace that I am on 30-30-30 with Labour and the Conservatives here at North West Durham, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post.

I will stand for this seat, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.