Vote David Lindsay

As long as you do not change anything, then please feel free to copy and paste this, print it off, and distribute it far and wide. Also, please feel free to make your own Vote David Lindsay posters for windows and so on, just so long as they have the very small print at the bottom:

Vote David Lindsay

On 14th March, I was wrongfully arrested in an attempt to intimidate me out of contesting these elections. But I have not been intimidated. On 4th May, I ask for your vote for Durham County Council in the Lanchester Ward (Lanchester, Burnhope and Castleside), and for Lanchester Parish Council.

I have been brought back into active politics as a campaigner for justice for Durham County Council’s Teaching Assistants, as a campaigner against the proposed drastic cuts to hospital services in County Durham, and as a campaigner against the cuts to the public transport on which, as a disabled person, I am reliant. I was a member of Lanchester Parish Council from 1999 until I stood down voluntarily in 2013. I was a governor of Lanchester Endowed Parochial Primary School from 1999 to 2007. I was a governor of St Bede’s from 2000 to 2008. I have lived in Lanchester since the age of 13, and before that I lived from the age of four in Burnhope.

I have supported the Teaching Assistants from the start. Among other things, I secured the endorsement of their cause by several national trade union leaders in the Northern Echo on 3rd August 2016. I secured their landmark meeting with Jeremy Corbyn on the eve of last year’s Miners’ Gala. I secured the signature of Angela Rayner on their petition. And I secured the support that George Galloway expresses for them regularly on his radio programme, and routinely to his quarter of a million followers on Twitter, as well as at least once (23rd November 2016) in a letter to the Northern Echo.

I am a strong critic of Durham County Council’s incompetence. That includes the closure of the DLI Museum, the amassing of vast reserves while services have been and are being cut, the bailing out of Durham County Cricket Club despite those cuts, the mismanagement of relations with the Regional Assembly, the selling off of care homes at discounted value, the scandal of Windlestone Hall, the circumstances that necessitated the award of enormous compensation to a teacher, the substantial additional cost of the failure to pay that compensation promptly, the lavish expense of entertainment by senior Councillors and Officers, and the waste of five thousand pounds on a bus shelter that was not on a bus route.

I regard the current Labour Leadership of Durham County Council as no better than in the 1960s. The Council has awarded irregular contracts, a Council Officer has received only a caution for gazumping on land fees, a decoy candidate has been fielded in an election (watch out for that one), Councillors have been let off for failing to pay Council Tax, Councillors have failed to declare interests, Councillors have promoted their own businesses, Freedom of Information Requests have been ignored, and Opposition candidates have been denied information.

I am already working with trade unions, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Independents, to bring the whole of the Volkswagen Group’s production for the British market to County Durham after Brexit. That would include Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT and Škoda. What a contrast with a Labour Leadership that, for 32 years and counting, has merely managed other people’s poverty.

I am honoured that my Campaign Patron is Councillor Alex Watson OBE of Consett North, who led Derwentside District Council for decades. I support the re-election of all sitting Independent, Liberal Democrat and Conservative County Councillors, and the election of whoever is best placed to defeat Labour in each Ward.

#VoteDavidLindsay

Published and promoted by, and on behalf of, David Lindsay, 13 Foxhills Crescent, Lanchester, Durham, DH7 OPW.