Friday 4 August 2017

Silencing The Foghorns

The consistent Labour poll lead, last night's superb local by-election results for Labour even in the decidedly non-metropolitan South, and the British Election Study's demolition of the fantasy that "people voted for Corbyn because they knew he wouldn't win", mean that everyone who has tried to smear Jeremy Corbyn might as well have stayed in bed.

The foghorns in the darker corners of the pub, the press and the Internet can just be left there, and ignored in the way that the people who live near a church clock or an airport quickly learn not to notice it.

That does not mean "Tories" in general, I should add. I have many friends in each of the three main parties, but I have enemies in only one of them. That one is not the Conservative Party. I have no enemies in that. Or in the Lib Dems.

I called for the re-election of the sitting Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Independent members of Durham County Council this year, and for the defeat of all Labour candidates by the simple method of not voting for any of them.

Had that strategy been adopted, then the Teaching Assistants would already have won by now, as they would have done if their champion, Owen Temple, had been returned to Parliament.

We would also be well on the way to bringing the whole of Volkswagen's production for the British market to County Durham after, or in anticipation of, the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

I voted for 15 candidates to fill the 15 seats on Lanchester Parish Council, and 12 of those candidates were elected.

Among those 12 were, and are, Labour, Independent, Conservative and Liberal Democrat representatives. (I also voted for two candidates with No Description, including myself.)

No one on that Council would have been elected on the votes of people who had voted only Labour, or only Independent, or only Conservative, or only Liberal Democrat.

Such ballot papers were submitted, but I was at the count, and I can assure you that there were not enough of them to have elected anybody. Everyone who was elected ought to keep that in mind.

I am a candidate for Police, Crime and Victims' Commissioner for County Durham and Darlington in 2020.

The continued attempt to prosecute me for – oh, can anyone even remember what? – has no remaining motivation except to prevent my election to that office.

As such, it is an unwarranted interference in the electoral process by the Crown Prosecution Service, calling for national and international condemnation.

Here in a public library, I have just had a very left-wing old friend come up to me and promise to attend court in support of me if at all possible, expressing the universal disgust at how I was being treated, but adding that, "That's the council for you."

I have a feeling that he is still a member of the Labour Party. He certainly used to be. Alas, so are the people who run "the council for you".

Nevertheless, I continue to advocate a Labour vote in every constituency at the next General Election. No exceptions. No excuses. There is a time and a place to be precious. That will be neither.

As I think back to the days of Hilary Armstrong and of that little office boy of hers whose name no one important remembers, if they ever knew it, it amuses me no end that this of all constituencies now has the most left-wing MP to have been returned in the 30 years since 1987, when Terry Fields and Dave Nellist last got in.

Ah, the tea boy, whatever he was called.

The foghorns in the darker corners of the pub, the press and the Internet can just be left there, and ignored in the way that the people who live near a church clock or an airport quickly learn not to notice it.

The consistent Labour poll lead, last night's superb local by-election results for Labour even in the decidedly non-metropolitan South, and the British Election Study's demolition of the fantasy that "people voted for Corbyn because they knew he wouldn't win", mean that everyone who has tried to smear Jeremy Corbyn might as well have stayed in bed.

2 comments:

  1. But this means you will not be standing for Parliament. Are you sure?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pretty much, yes. Never say never. But pretty much, yes. The next Election will be the most important of my lifetime, and no time or place for confusion.

      Delete