Fit To Print

Ladies, if I may be so bold, today is the 104th anniversary of the death of Emily Wilding Davison. She had thrown herself in front of the King's horse at the Derby four days before, in a protest demanding that women be given the vote.

I doubt that I shall ever quite forgive the Labour Party for having made it impossible for me to vote for it today. In most cases, everywhere outside County Durham (other than Easington) and outside Manchester Gorton, you should vote Labour. But I can't. And it hurts.

This time tomorrow, either Laura Pidcock will be the MP for North West Durham, or Laura Pidcock will not be the MP for North West Durham. Either way, there will be no remaining reason to persecute me, and I trust that the astonishingly ongoing attempt to do so will finally be dropped. Anything else would be too malicious and vindictive for words.

Two months ago, I had never voted for a Lib Dem candidate for anything. Lib Dems are surprisingly thin on the ground in Lanchester. But I have now voted Lib Dem twice. For Lanchester Parish Council, where no party ever runs a full slate and I trust that none ever will, I cast my 15 votes variously for Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Independent candidates, and for those of No Description. 12 of my 15 preferred candidates were elected, from the first four of those categories.

That was not a one off, although the Lib Dems had not put up here in the past. I have no need to be too tribal about politics, since my own position is so obvious. My parliamentary staff in 2020 would have comprised, and my parliamentary staff in 2022 will comprise, a broadly ecumenical spread. Of course, overarching and undergirding my many causes is that of bringing together the many critiques of neoliberal economic policy and of neoconservative foreign policy.

If anyone elected today fancied having me on the staff in order to pursue some or all of the many research options in that link, then do please get in touch. Bottom of the pay scale, of course. That would do me so long as I could carry on living here. Don't worry about anything that might still be hanging over me. Has a parliamentary pass ever been refused to anyone, anyone at all, who had been nominated for one by a Member of Parliament from Northern Ireland?

Those projects, and many others besides. My work to secure the translation into English, and the publication in this country, of Operation Israel, which is my friend Hernán Dobry's definitive account of Israel's arming of Argentina during the Falklands War. My work for the Dorje Shugden practitioners, who are persecuted by the Dalai Lama. My work on Modern Monetary Theory, my discovery of which ranks in my life as a light bulb moment second, although strictly second, to my discovery of Thomism. And so on.

In the meantime, if the print media are dead, then someone needs to tell George Osborne, and someone needs to tell the authors of this morning's front pages. The Sun's was an important reminder that that newspaper's almost entirely public school staff are in fact engaged in a joke on their readers. But the reason why alternatives have never come to anything has been because of a failure to appreciate that the sport and the showbiz are what hook those readers. Having bought the paper for those stories, they then read the politics as well.

It's obvious, but this point is lost on an awful lot of people. It is not, however, lost on me. Watch this space. In fact, don't just watch this space. Especially if you are looking for an investment opportunity, then do please get in touch.