Both A Product And A Feature

Topped and tailed by my left and right hands (how’s that for a mixed metaphor?), this has been submitted unsuccessfully to numerous national and local media over the last month. The sitting MP, who is a tabloid caricature of a left-winger and who is surrounded by MI5, is clearly very well-protected indeed:

Dear Sir,

Here in North West Durham, Labour holds fewer than half of the County Council seats, the Conservative parliamentary candidate won 34 per cent of the vote last year, the Liberal Democrat candidate cut the Labour majority in half in 2010, and an Independent kept his deposit both in 2005 and in 2010. Wear Valley was controlled for a time by the Liberal Democrats, who remained numerous on it until its abolition. Derwentside was in practice controlled by an alliance between the Independents and that section of what was then the local Labour Party which now supports the parliamentary candidacy of David Lindsay.

David Lindsay is both a product and a feature of this political pluralism. He has undertaken that, as the Member of Parliament, he would appoint an Independent, a Labourite, a Conservative and a Liberal Democrat in each of the County Wards, ideally including at least one person in each of the former District Wards, to communicate the concerns of local people to him, and then to work with them and with him to address those concerns. All past, present and aspirant Independent Councillors, and all former Labour Councillors, ought to join us in signing David Lindsay’s nomination papers. 

Yours faithfully,

James Draper, Lanchester, County Durham
Norman Bolton, Consett, County Durham
Michael Parker, Crook, County Durham; @Michael45759951
Adam J. Young, Going Postal (personal capacity); Burnopfield, County Durham; @JustALocalSerf

All of this is, of course, perfectly correct. Furthermore, I have undertaken, that, in the hung Parliament that is the most likely outcome of the next General Election, the price of my support for any Government would be the necessary support for a number of projects in each of the former District Wards equal to the former number of District Councillors, together with justice for the 472 Teaching Assistants whom Durham County Council had deprived of 23 per cent of their incomes.

My Campaign Patrons are Councillor Alex Watson OBE, who was the Leader of Derwentside District Council during the period described, and Davey Ayre, a legendary local trade unionist. Both are stalwarts of, among many other things, the Teaching Assistants’ campaign. By contrast, the sitting MP has appointed as her Political Advisor the man whose political advice has reduced the TAs to their present, sorry state.

My crowdfunding page has been taken down without my knowledge or consent. But you can still email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com instead, and that address accepts PayPal.