Where It All Points

The Conservatives are on an all-conquering 43 per cent, to Labour's 33. Keir Starmer's definition of the "20 points ahead" that he promised is clearly "10 points behind".

Around a third of those who voted at all will indeed vote for Labour's permanent austerity at home and forever war abroad. 

But the same number will always vote Conservative, no matter what, if anything, that party happened to stand for at any given time.

And at least another tenth will vote for whoever was best placed to defeat permanent austerity at home and forever war abroad.

Yellow?

Following the Chesham and Amersham by-election, the Liberal Democrats have unveiled their Blue Wall target seats. There are only four, and a former Leader of the Lib Dems is already the MP for one of them. They have never been as nice as they looked. Are they going soft?

The Lib Dems were such stalwarts of the County Durham Teaching Assistants' campaign, which the results on Super Thursday may reasonably be said to have reactivated, that even I voted in 2017 for Owen Temple rather than for the lukewarm Laura Pidcock. And I have nothing but goodwill towards any administration that has overthrown the corrupt and brutal right-wing Labour machine in County Durham after more than 100 years.

But it was the Conservatives who were the moderating party in the Coalition. However slowly or slightly, austerity did begin to be eased once the Cabinet no longer contained the most direct and explicit heirs of the Whigs, of the Gladstonians, and of the Callaghan Government, including the Lib-Lab Pact.

Ever since the 2016 referendum, it has been obvious that there was a natural party of the well heeled, NIMBYish, Thatcherite, socially ultraliberal, and ferociously pro-EU section of the electorate. Had the 2015 Parliament run its course, then the Lib Dems would have taken scores of seats from the Conservatives in the South outside London, where such voters did and do predominate and even dominate. In 2024, they finally would. If they wanted to. But do they?

Not that Boris Johnson needs to worry. The Conservatives will remain in office, not only by holding their gains from 2019, but by offsetting any losses to the Lib Dems with seats that had voted twice for Jeremy Corbyn's economic programme, as the 2019 seats would also have done if Corbyn had held the Bennite line against Keir Starmer on Brexit.

It is now up to the Lib Dems whether or not they wanted the seats of which they should be the natural party. But if the people and places that had long ago voted three times for Margaret Thatcher had gone Lib Dem, then the Conservative Government would owe them nothing. It would owe us instead. It already does. Let's fill our boots.

Public Protection

Even in the midst of everything else, attention is at last being turned to the scandal of those still serving the abolished New Labour sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection. I have met them.

I was at the opposite extreme, in that they could not release me quickly enough. Less than 36 hours after the Close of Poll on Super Thursday, and less than a fortnight after I had been sent down, the letter came under my cell door, granting me a tag, for which I had never applied, on the earliest day that the law would allow.

After more than a century, the right-wing Labour machine had lost control of Durham County Council. The people who had conspired to bang me up had fallen politically, so out I would be going. And out I now am. Having received more education in those three months than in the previous 35 years.

Part of that education was being made aware of the plight of people who, having long since served two or three year tariffs for the kinds of offences that incurred such things, were nevertheless still imprisoned indefinitely, and facing indefinite licence even if they were ever to have been released.

The class and ethnic composition of those who have been given IPPs over and above their normal sentences will come as no surprise, I am sure. Those were the Blair years, and the Cameron Government was still too in thrall to "the Great Man" to reverse this obscenity properly.

But Boris Johnson faces a Blairite restorationist who is entirely a creature of the "intelligence and security" State, who is despised by working-class men, and who is viscerally hated by black ones. He should make this and many other plays for the rest of the Red Wall and for the whole of the Black Wall. To mix metaphors, he would be pushing at an open door. In this case, a prison door that many had lost hope of ever seeing opened.

The Adrian Hilton Challenge: Day 16

Adrian Hilton, I had to Google you, and I still have little or no idea who you are, so when, exactly, have I ever "stalked" you at all, much less "for longer than [you] care to remember"? 

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Oliver Kamm Challenge: Day 16

Oliver Kamm, whose signature to this do you claim that I forged? Name the name.

Oliver Kamm, when, exactly, have I ever been found to have accused anyone of child abuse?

Oliver Kamm, when, exactly, have I ever called for anyone to be murdered?

And Oliver Kamm, since I am a declared and active candidate for the parliamentary seat of North West Durham, are you? If not, why not?

I could go on at very great length, but these questions will do for now.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Representatives Challenge: Day 16

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.

Furthermore, I invite each and every other candidate for the parliamentary seat of North West Durham 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.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Clergy Challenge: Day 16

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.

Since, as private citizens, none of them has resigned as a Patron of my parliamentary campaign at North West Durham, I invite each and all of the 12 archbishops and diocesan bishops of the Red Wall dioceses of Birmingham, Hallam, Hexham and Newcastle, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Northampton, Nottingham, Salford, Shrewsbury, and Wrexham, 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.

And since none of them has resigned as a Patron of my parliamentary campaign at North West Durham, I invite each and all the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Franciscan Custos of the Holy Land, the Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of Jerusalem, the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Jerusalem, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchal Vicar in Jerusalem, the Ethiopian Orthodox Archbishop of Jerusalem, the Maronite Patriarchal Exarch of Jerusalem and Palestine, the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, the Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, the Syrian Catholic Patriarchal Exarch of Jerusalem, and the Armenian Catholic Patriarchal Exarch of Jerusalem and Amman, 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.

The scandalous allegation against me on 2nd March 2020 was recanted under oath at Durham Crown Court on 11th of that month, calling gravely into question my convictions the next day by exposing that key character witness as unreliable, a fact that was not mentioned in closing statements or in summation. Unless, as is widely assumed, the real reason for them is the content of this book, then the sanctions imposed upon me in my absence on 2nd March 2020 are void. I expect a written apology by 30th September 2021, and for it to be published in full in The Northern Cross. Financially, I would then settle for the reimbursement of my victim surcharges. One would not wish to have to sue the Church. If I were still subject to any sanction by the Church at the time of the next General Election, and if I were to be defeated at that Election, then I would seek to have that result overturned in the courts on grounds of undue spiritual influence.

This post will appear daily until further notice.