The Seven Year Itch?

The last time that the Labour Party needed a candidate for North West Durham, then the Constituency Labour Party was told that it was to be allowed no role in the process of selecting one, and then that no one who had ever set eyes on the place was capable of being its Labour MP.

Next time, the CLP might reasonably insist that that approach had been a disaster. Therefore, four possibilities present themselves, and only one of those might realistically be expected to happen.

There is not going to be a candidate who, having been no older than 17 in 2017, was still no older than 24 in 2024. There is not going to be a candidate who, while heavily trailed as "local", had been living here for less than seven years. And there is certainly not going to be a candidate who had been a Labour Party member for less than seven years.

So the candidate will have been old enough in 2017, will have been living here in 2017, and will have been a Labour Party member in 2017. But in that case, then why was that person not the candidate in 2017? That question will be unanswerable in 2024.

Not The Straight Ticket

Oh, how they long for Donald Trump to lose the popular vote but win the Electoral College.

They would feel cheated if all that they had had to do to remove him had been to vote, and to vote for old Joe Biden of all people. 

Instead, they yearn to have to take to the streets and overthrow Trump.

Indeed, even if Biden had won the Electoral College, then they would still try and do that during the transition period.

Laughter Lines

The BBC comedy that was essential to the creation of Boris Johnson as a major national figure was also essential to the destruction of the first major left-wing project in British electoral politics in at least a generation. 

So what does Tim Davie mean by "left-wing comedy"? Is it just anything that is not Chubby Brown? 

The Starmer-Biden Tendency is allowed to flatter itself that it is radical and left-wing, and its enemies are allowed to shriek hysterically that such is in fact the case. 

They are both wrong. And there is absolutely nothing funny about that.

Assange Travesty Continues

Craig Murray writes:

The travesty that is Julian Assange’s extradition hearing resumes fully on 7 September at the Old Bailey. I shall be abandoning my own legal team and going down to London to cover it again in full, for an expected three weeks. 

How this is going to work at the Old Bailey, I do not know. Covid restrictions presumably mean that the numbers in the public gallery will be tiny. As of now, there is no arrangement for Julian’s friends and family in place. It looks like 4am queuing is in prospect.

By 7 September it will be six months since I applied to resume my membership of the National Union of Journalists. I STILL have not the slightest idea who objected, or what the grounds were for objection. I have not heard from the NUJ for months. 

A senior official of an international journalists’ organisation has told us that he inquired, and learnt that the NUJ national executive has considered my application and set up a sub-committee to report. 

But if so, why is this secret, why have I not been informed, and why am I not allowed to know what the objection is? I find this all very sinister. At this stage it is not paranoid to wonder whose hand is behind this.

The practical effect of this is that without NUJ membership I cannot access a Press card, and avail myself of whatever media arrangements are in place for the Assange hearing (just as I was kept out of most of the Salmond trial).

I have now reached the stage where I would like to take legal action against the NUJ, but the finances are beyond me. I am not going to ask you to donate because we are going to need all our resources for the contempt case against me, which the Crown drags out.

I shall be writing next week about my own case and that hearing earlier this week. I would just note now that the “virtual hearing” is entirely unsatisfactory and unfair on defendants. 

There was at least one occasion when my QC agreed with a suggestion of the judge when I would have instructed them not to had I been, as I should normally have been, seated near them in court and able to instruct.

Oliver Kamm Candidacy Watch: Day 18

Oliver Kamm, since you are a Starmer supporter, if you were to be the Labour candidate here at North West Durham next time (and they still cannot find one for this highly marginal seat), then I would put up as an Independent again.

You could have the Labour nomination here with one tweet: "In support of @Keir_Starmer, I am the @UKLabour candidate at North West Durham, there being no other. @NWDurhamLabour @CoDurhamLabour @RicHolden @TheNorthernEcho @itvtynetees @BBCLN" 

Get it tweeted. Go on. I dare you. Put up or shut up. A daily update will appear here until you do.

Oliver Kamm Arrest Watch: Day 26

There is more evidence to arrest Oliver Kamm than there was to convict me, and he clams up over on Guido Fawkes when asked whether or not he has been arrested. So, has Oliver Kamm been arrested? If not, why not?

Kamm faked a death threat against himself, and he used a contact at Durham, who ought also to be arrested and who may in fact have been so, to try and pin it on me. That incident is so similar to the one of which I was convicted as to call into question my conviction. A daily update will appear here until further notice.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 57

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times.

Sue me.

Your bizarre CapX article, as well as numerous other statements of yours since then, have had nothing to do with the substance of my previous court case, in relation to which I maintain my innocence. So they have not already been tested in court. And they are lies.

You made up the "anti-Semitic death threat" against yourself, in a language that I could not read, and even though you are not Jewish. I was present when the Police literally laughed it out.

Like me, the Police know how you did it; they know who in Durham you used, and so do I. Eventually, you will either do time for this, or it will see you sent to a psychiatric institution, possibly both.

You are a stalker with an acknowledged history of mental illness, and I can see less and less reason why I ought not to move to have you committed. Or sent to prison. By the criteria that were used to convict me, then that would be an open and shut case.

Next time that you try and frame someone, then do not use a language, and even a script, that your target cannot read. The Police tend to laugh out that kind of thing.

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times. Sue me. This post will appear here daily until you do.