My Head On The Block

"You are blocked from following @georgegalloway and viewing @georgegalloway's Tweets." For saying that, "As a journalist, I am not here to be any politician's cheerleader." In reference to Laura Pidcock.

To Clarify Her Position

This was sent to several newspapers, but apparently none of them has printed it:

Dear Sir,

We note that our Member of Parliament, Laura Pidcock, has been endorsed by the influential left-wing journalist, Owen Jones, as a potential future Leader of the Labour Party, and thus as a potential future Prime Minister. From different points on the political spectrum, we therefore call on Ms Pidcock to clarify her position on several issues in relation to which Mr Jones has expressed highly controversial opinions. Those issues are drugs, prostitution, pornography, and the suggestion that gender ought to be a matter of self-identification.

Yours faithfully,

Adam J. Young, Burnopfield, County Durham

James Draper, Lanchester, County Durham 

The Enemy No More

At 70,000, the membership of the Conservative Party is around 15,000 lower than the population of the former District of Derwentside. Most of those members are old. Many of them are very, very old. The urban myth has to be got up that it was ever thus. But it was not. Even I can remember a time before this.

Help, however, is at hand. If you were one of North West Durham's 16,516 Conservative voters last year, then I might be looking for members of my staff after the next General Election. At constituency level, that staff would include members or supporters of each and all of the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, and any other Groups on Durham County Council that had representation at either County or Parish level here in North West Durham.

No one who was currently employed by Laura Pidcock need necessarily fear for his or her livelihood. Those staff would be free to stay, and they would be free to go. Those who went, would go of their own free will.

Teaching Assistance

If I were a Member of Parliament, then I would not only table a motion demanding the dismissal of Toby Young, but I would read out the tweets that he had been furiously deleting, tweets that would have precluded his appointment as a Teaching Assistant. At the very least, in view of that fact, he ought to be paid no more than one pound below the salary of any of the 472 of Durham County Council’s Teaching Assistants who have now lost 23 per cent of their pay. The same is true of the members of Durham County Council, whose allowance should be reduced to that level.

But then, I would do a lot of things if I were a Member of Parliament. I would identify in each ward of the former Districts of Derwentside and Wear Valley a number of projects equal to the former number of District Councillors, so as to campaign in support of those projects. The necessary support for each and all of those projects, together with justice for the 472, and together with bringing Volkswagen’s production for the British market to County Durham after Brexit, would be the price of my support for any Government in the hung Parliament that, on the current figures that have now been in place for quite some time, remains the most likely outcome of the next General Election.

My Westminster office would be a national and international centre for the formulation, the articulation and, where possible, the implementation of the alternative to neoliberal economic policy and to neoconservative foreign policy. My own preference is strongly for economic equality and international peace through the democratic control of the means to those ends, recognising the leading roles of the working class in the struggle for equality, and of the working class and the youth in the struggle for peace. In short, I am firmly a man of the Left. But I would provide a national and international platform for a wide variety of perspectives opposed to politically chosen austerity and to wars of political choice. Many of the strongest influences on my own thinking have come, and continue to come, from what would at first sight appear to be the opposite end of the political spectrum.

In the same spirit, my constituency staff, drawn from throughout the constituency and based in every part of it, would include members or supporters of each and all of the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, and any other Groups on Durham County Council that had representation at either County or Parish level here in North West Durham. No one who was currently employed by Laura Pidcock need necessarily fear for his or her livelihood. Those staff would be free to stay, and they would be free to go. Those who went, would go of their own free will.

Fares Fair

The biggest hike in rail fares in five years arrived today, as the abysmal Transport Secretary flew out to Qatar. With the cost of HS2 diverted to reconnecting many towns to the rail network, we need the renationalisation of the rail services as each franchise came up for renewal, and thus at no cost, as the backbone of a rebuilt network of public transport, eventually free at the point of use, and prior to that requiring the approval of the House of Commons for any increase in fares. Make it happen.

Death Duties

You are getting death threats from unidentified people on Twitter, are you? Well, I once had an actual attempt on my life, organised from within the constituency office of the then Government Chief Whip. And I am the victim of an active death threat from one nuclear-armed state on behalf of two others.

Radical Routes

Of course Chris Grayling's proposal to replace local bus services with "something like Uber" is ridiculous and offensive. But even that would be an improvement on Durham County Council's slashing of bus services as if possessed.

Those responsible for that slashing would have lost control of the Council if those with the power to deliver that result had listened to me, instead of listening to the political advice of a man who is now the Political Advisor to a Member of Parliament. Moreover, as a result of the fact that certain people took that advice instead of mine, 472 Teaching Assistants are still on course to lose 23 per cent of their pay.

We need the renationalisation of the rail services as each franchise came up for renewal, and thus at no cost, as the backbone of a rebuilt network of public transport, eventually free at the point of use, and prior to that requiring the approval of the House of Commons for any increase in fares, with the cost of HS2 diverted to reconnecting many towns to the rail network.

In any case, Uber's days are numbered. Over to the unions and the councils to set up their own. It's an app. It's not hard to do. This could all be built into the existing black cab trade. With Uber out of the way, then the black cabs would not be undercut if they adopted the technology. All overseen by the councils and the unions. It could be integrated with Oyster and everything. Everyone would love it. They would rapidly wonder how they ever got by without it.

The Knowledge is no more a "restrictive practice" than a medical or a legal qualification is. The same was true of many working-class protections that have been lost. Let this be the beginning of their restoration. No satnav in the world could ever match The Knowledge, or that latter would no longer exist, still less would it command such healthy remuneration. This is a moment to be seized. The technology now effectively belongs only to the people. Seize this moment.