I am the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for North West Durham. My Campaign Patrons are Councillor Alex Watson OBE, who led Derwentside District Council for many years, and Davey Ayre, a legendary local trade unionist. I was born in 1977, and I have lived in North West Durham since 1982. I was an elected member of Lanchester Parish Council from 1999 to 2013, a governor of Lanchester Endowed Parochial Primary School from 1999 to 2007, and a governor of Saint Bede’s from 2000 to 2008. I am one of Derwentside’s elected public governors of County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. I was elected unopposed. I first appeared on television in defence of Shotley Bridge Hospital in 1997. At around that time, I was the first journalist to try and expose the links between Harriet Harman and the Paedophile Information Exchange.
There is certainly going to be another hung Parliament. 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 whose pay Durham County Council had cut by 23 per cent, together with not less than the level of hospital provision in Consett in July 2019, and together with the implementation of the plan for the rail service that had been advanced by The Northern Echo in June 2018. In Lanchester, the three projects would include proper flood defences, and the restoration of full bus services. In Weardale, I would require the Sixth Form provision on which the former MP had said a lot but delivered nothing.
The Conservative candidate won 34.5 per cent in 2017. Labour holds fewer than half of the County Council seats in North West Durham. The Liberal Democrats cut the Labour majority in half in 2010. An Independent kept his deposit both in 2005 and in 2010. Therefore, I 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 work with me and with local people. I would also appoint a Political Advisor from within each of the Independent, Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat blocs.
I believe in economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends. Therefore, I support Brexit, Modern Monetary Theory, the Universal Basic Income, mass classical education, publicly owned utilities, Julian Assange, Chris Williamson, the British coal and steel industries, nuclear power, the Belt and Road Initiative, a British Glass-Steagall Act, democratic political control over monetary policy, the abolition of NHS charges, and putting Tony Blair on trial for Iraq. I oppose Trident, NATO, Saudi Arabia, all of the drugs that are currently illegal, and the so-called sex industry. The problem with the world is not that it has people in it. Which people, exactly? Instead of a halt to industrial and scientific progress, even the resources of the Solar System must not be beyond our reach as a species. Gender self-identification denies the basic scientific fact that is biological sex. As a mixed-race person, I support immigration controls. The IHRA Definition of Antisemitism silences Black And Minority Ethnic, refugee and migrant voices, and that way lies Windrush and Grenfell Tower. Being disabled, I support hugely expanded public transport, free at the point of use. I support fathers’ rights. I am a practising Catholic. My pamphlet The People’s Voice is available on Amazon. I tweet @davidaslindsay. I can be contacted on davidaslindsay@hotmail.com.
