Friday 22 March 2013

You Can Have Me If You Want Me

After 14 years, I had been all ready to retire from my Parish Council seat, never mind anything else.

But then came the Labour abstention on workfare.

I am now beginning to think that I should put up for Parliament wherever, if anywhere, the most people asked me to do so.

So long as the sitting MP (seeking re-election) did not vote against workfare, did not vote against the war in Libya, and was not one of the Labour or Lib Dem ones who either voted to save the traditional definition of marriage or at least abstained.

That last point does rule out North West Durham. Those local Labour grandees, and I mean that word as a compliment, who had been dispossessed by the abolition of Derwentside District Council and then rendered apoplectic by the imposition of an all-women shortlist, could have put up one of their own from the Consett area and easily been the First Past The Post in what would thus have become a five or six-way split.

Watts Stelling was always very close to them, such that his Independent Group effectively provided their majority against those on whom see below. Presumably, therefore, he could have been persuaded to stand aside. Whereas their own one-time Great White Hope, who was by then putting up for UKIP, would not have been so amenable.

They missed their chance, and anyway we got Pat Glass rather than the kind of parachuted teenage clone whom most people had feared. North West Durham was not, however, the only parliamentary constituency to fall partly within the much-mourned District of Derwentside.

Nor, even in the days of Hilary Armstrong, was it the one where the MP had the worse relations with that authority's great and good, for so they were. Their allies in that constituency once asked me to try my luck as an alternative to that other MP in the selection process. But nothing ever came of it.

Oh, well, that was another life.

Wherever, if anywhere, the most people asked me to do so. So long as the sitting MP (seeking re-election) did not vote against workfare, did not vote against the war in Libya, and was not one of the Labour or Lib Dem ones who either voted to save the traditional definition of marriage or at least abstained.

Do you want me?

13 comments:

  1. Sounds like the title of a forlorn love letter to the woman who scorned your affections. Or at least the title of a sad 50-year-old's Plentyoffish profile.

    Not exactly a stirring start to an election campaign.

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  2. What is Plentyoffish? Or do I not want to know?

    I know this: I'll put up where enough people want me to.

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  3. Where's that? The Outer Hebrides?

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  4. If they want me.

    Western Isles has a long history as a Labour seat, and it ought to be a target in 2015. That it isn't is one of many illustrations of the short-sighted tunnel vision of Labour approach.

    They know that they are going to win, of course. But why not make the effort to win the whole country? Especially somewhere where they are already a close second, and were first not long ago. Do they even know that about many constituencies?

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  5. You won't put up. This is all a bit desperate.

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  6. They are going to win, as it were, by default since they haven't yet outlined a single policy.

    If they don't have an outright majority, they'll join the Lib Dems, (who have already paved the way for that coalition, during the Leveson assault on our free press).

    I'm heartened to see the Left-wing New Statesman and Independent both rejecting the new Royal Charter, as an assault on press freedom.

    This shows both Left and Right are now uniting against Hacked Off, the sleazy celebrities and shadowy corporate interests who back it, and their assault on 300 years of press freedom.

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  7. Anonymous 08:30, it's not up to me. I will put up where people want me. Or, if they want me in more than one place, then I will put up where the most people want me. It is entirely up to them now. If nowhere calls, then that will be that. I'll live.

    Anonymous 19:05, it's not Ed Miliband's fault that that's all he has to do. And the papers' proprietors will pay out million pound damages once, but not twice. Editors who stick to that line will do nothing except make themselves unemployable. Very, very quickly.

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  8. Oh, they won't make themselves unemployable.

    The fight is only just beginning-this Bill is already falling apart at the seams, in the Lords, in the European Court of Human Rights (see Article 10) and with the rejection of growing numbers of bloggers, newspapers and magazines, from both the Left and Right.

    It's all sides of the political spectrum now; this isn't a Left-Right issue any more, it's freedom vs tyranny.

    On the day Russia, the US and Zimbabwe have sneered at our attempt to censor the press. Britain isn't about to surrender 300 years of freedom to a hated political class whom nobody votes for, any more.

    Believe me, the battle for freedoms starts here.

    Congratulations to the New Statesman, the Mirror and the Independent on joining us.

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  9. It's Parliament versus everyone else. That means that the sovereign body wins. Simple as that.

    But I am about to do a post on this.

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  10. Who are "they?"

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  11. I broke down and wept when you were too ill to run for North West Durham last time, especially with the papers all signed and everything. A lot of us who knew you from school felt the same, so did plenty of other people round here.

    Yes we got Pat and she is very good. Where had the Labour Party been hiding her, no-one had ever heard of her but she had been living in Lanchester since the 70s? Waiting for Neil Fleming instead I suppose. Still waiting today. LOL.

    Parliament needs you though. Good luck finding someone to take you on, you are showing great humility doing it this way. You are an inspiration, you always have been.

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  12. Yes we got Pat and she is very good. Where had the Labour Party been hiding her, no-one had ever heard of her but she had been living in Lanchester since the 70s? Waiting for Neil Fleming instead I suppose. Still waiting today. LOL.

    Now, that's not nice. That's not nice at all.

    Otherwise, though, you are very kind.

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