Tag Archives: East

Jamie Driscoll has given up on the Labour Party and gone Independent. Help him get re-elected as North East Mayor

Independent: Jamie Driscoll.

This is fairly self-explanatory:

The letter in the tweet, to Labour leader Keir Starmer, states: “Given you have barred me from running as North East Mayor, despite being incumbent Mayor, I have no other choice. In 2020 you told me to my face that you would ‘inspire people to come together… disciplining people to be united is going nowhere.’ You’ve broken that promise.”

That’s one more broken promise to add to a very long list, then! And Mr Driscoll comments on this: “You’ve U-turned on so many promises: £28 billion to tackle the climate emergency, free school meals, ending university tuition fees, reversing NHS privatisation; in fact, a list of broken promises too long to repeat in this letter. And please stop saying ‘I make no apologies for…’ before you find yourself saying ‘I make no apologies for making no apologies.

“Britain is a mess. Wages have fallen behind inflation. People are struggling to pay mortgages. Knife crime is out of control. Business investment has flat lined. The climate response is barely existent. People with chest pains wait an hour for ambulances. Our transport system is in chaos.

“It is not grown-up politics to say Britain is broken, and then claim things are now so difficult
we will abandon any plan to fix it. That is mental gymnastics worthy of Olympic gold.”

Mr Driscoll continues: “Worst of all, you’ve said you’re not interested in hope and change. Well, I am – Britain needs hope and change. Instead of London Labour HQ barring me from running, you could have used my work as a showcase of economic competence.

“My Combined Authority has built affordable homes in rural and urban areas. I’ve worked with businesses large and small to deliver a pipeline of over 5,000 new jobs, all backed by our Good Work Pledge. Implemented a Green New Deal and invested heavily in offshore renewable energy. Our Child Poverty Prevention Programme is hailed as an exemplar of best practice. And we’ve increased adult education enrolments from 22,000 a year to 33,000 a year for the same budget. All this wealth generation was done without charging people a penny in council tax.

“I’ve led negotiations and delivered an expanded £4.27 billion devolution deal across the North East to transform our region’s transport system.

“I’ve done this by being pragmatic and putting results ahead of party politics – to the effect that I’ve received praise for my ‘constructive, non-partisan approach’ from Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Green and Independent Ministers, Mayors, MPs and councillors.

“I think I’ve shown that hope and change is not only possible – but that it’s a pragmatic, common sense response to the challenges of our time. This is not a time for faint hearts. It’s a time for bravery. Shy bairns get nowt.

“I didn’t become a politician until I was 48. I’m an engineer. Fixing broken systems is what I do.

“We need a new settlement. I value patriotism – and believe it’s expressed by public service, not xenophobia. My Dad drove a tank in the army, my brother served in the navy at the time of the Falklands. My politics are simple – I believe Britain should be run in the interests of the people who do the work. That includes those unable to work, and those retired from a lifetime of work. It’s not left-wing. It’s not right-wing. It’s common sense.

“The groundswell of support I’ve received has been humbling. Business leaders, trade union leaders, charity workers, huge numbers of Labour members, and elected politicians from every party have encouraged me to run as an independent, saying they will vote for me because the North East needs an autonomous voice that’s not in hock to Westminster Party HQs. They may be right.”

It all seems sensible to This Writer.

As an Independent, Mr Driscoll has no access to a political party’s electoral machine. He needs funds and he needs people who are willing to go out and campaign for him.

He has a GoFundMe site here. Its introductory information states: “A full campaign will cost around £150,000. I believe in listening to the public – so if you donate £25,000 by the end of August, I promise I’ll run. And I don’t hit that target, I won’t run. This decision is in your hands.

“As North East Mayor I’ll deliver a Total Transport Network, create a job for everyone who wants one, and deliver a Green New Deal. Find out more on my website https://jamiedriscoll.co.uk/”

Funders hit that £25k target in less than two hours. At the time of writing, he is well on his way to the full £150,000 needed to run a full campaign. I would urge you to support him.

And I would remind you that Jamie Driscoll is not the only former Labour representative now standing for election as an independent.

Expect information about the others in the very near future.

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The dishonesty of Baroness Jenny Chapman

Baroness Chapman: she thinks democracy is the right to vote for the person Keir Starmer and his cronies say should represent us, rather than the right to make our own choice. You see the difference?

“Everybody’s entitled to an opinion. What they’re not entitled to do is invent facts,” says Piers Morgan on a BBC News advert that’s currently airing.

Inventing facts was exactly what Baroness Jenny Chapman did – on the BBC – yesterday (June 11) when she told a BBC North interviewer that Labour Party members would be able to choose the candidate they want to be the new North East Mayor.

This is clearly untrue while Jamie Driscoll is excluded from the longlist of candidates.

Baroness Chapman batted this criticism away with a non sequitur claim that Labour is “not a debating society”. That much is very clear.

But it does present itself as a democratic organisation, and if candidates for political office are excluded from the running before people who are entitled to vote even have a chance to do so, then that claim is clearly untrue.

Here’s the dialogue – watch and listen for yourself:

“This is about getting the right outcome for the people of the North East?” Shouldn’t that be the right-wing outcome?

“We need to have a leader in the region who can be that champion for us.” Who’s “us” in that sentence?

Jamie Driscoll has repeatedly set out the list of his achievements as North of Tyne Mayor – and it’s a long list.

Isn’t Baroness Chapman’s concern that Labour’s representative should be someone who will do what her party’s leaders in Westminster want – and not what the people of the northeast need?

Voters in that region would be well-advised to boycott the Labour Party – no matter whose face is being used to represent it – until this insult to democracy is reversed, and apologies presented by all those involved in it. And that includes Baroness Chapman.

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Labour’s mistreatment of Jamie Driscoll has backfired massively

Dumped: Jamie Driscoll.

It’s the thinnest excuse possible and everybody knows it: Keir Starmer wants self-confessed “last Corbynite in power”, Jamie Driscoll, out of his job as a metropolitan mayor, and he’s using a joint appearance with film director Ken Loach as the reason.

Mr Loach has already been expelled from the Labour Party, although nobody seems to know the reason, and Starmer’s mob is saying that Mr Driscoll having appeared at an event that the great British director also attended is enough reason to exclude him from candidate shortlists.

Mr Driscoll – rightly – reckons that’s a crock. He doesn’t even mention it in his article commenting on his achievements and the way his party is letting the people of northeast England down:

He states:

Labour struggles to convince the electorate it can handle the economy.  You’d think I was exactly the success story the Labour Party would want to shout about.  So when they barred me from standing as North East Mayor, it shocked people from across the political spectrum.  I’ve had literally thousands of messages of support.

I identify as a socialist.  Sometimes that puts me on a collision course with the Party leadership in London.

My first duty is to the people who elected me as their mayor.  The Labour members here, in our region, chose me to represent them last time.  They should have that choice again.  It’s called democracy.  Union leaders, MPs, and other Mayors are making my case, and asking for the decision to be reversed.

There’s a lack of trust in politics.  Second homes.  Second jobs.  Cash for questions.  Not me.  £0 expenses claims.  I pay for my own phone.  I gave up my car and use my bike or public transport so I see what everyone else has to deal with.

Politics needs to change.  We need a new direction.  Power must reside in the North East, and in every region of Britain.  Not in Westminster and Party HQs.  I have a vision of a Britain that’s run in the interests of the people who do the work.  And I believe we can get there.

Say what you like about Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham; she’s on the right side of this argument:

“Nodding heads” are exactly the kind of people Keir Starmer wants in all positions representing the Labour Party. It seems clear that the only people he wants to have any power at all are those who are completely subservient to him.

What of Ken Loach?

Well, we’ve established that he was expelled from the Labour Party for reasons that have never been disclosed. Anti-Semitism has been alleged but no accusation has ever stuck.

Still, right-wing lickspittles like Luke Akehurst are using association with Mr Loach as their reason for wanting rid of Mr Driscoll, as you can see below.

By that token, though, Keir Starmer should also be out of a job at the next election:

Right?

But when Mr Driscoll appeared on the BBC’s Newsnight, Labour sent a party drone from Sussex to undermine him with insults about David Brent (the Office idiot) and falsehoods about party rules.

And what happened? Mr Driscoll ran rings around Paul Richards, who made a fool of himself:

The clip has been sent around Twitter by a few commenters, and their observations speak for themselves. Here‘s Alistair Greaves: “Honestly, @MayorJD gives these ghouls far much more politeness than they deserve. Not sure why the #biasedbbc let Paul Richards have the last word though, and while they can argue “no-one is bigger or better than the party or the rules” JAMIE DRISCOLL HASN’T BROKEN ANY RULES.”

How about MsAlfieB here? “Was the BoD demand that Labour suspend anyone sharing a platform with an expelled member written into the rules? If so that’s really shocking Surely a mayor works for all in his city, not for the Labour party. Labour Party rules can’t be imposed on public servants doing their job.”

(The “BoD” would be the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which is not a Labour-affiliated organisation. But Starmer seems to have allied with it in his purge of left-wing party members.)

Also during that Newsnight appearance, Richards tried to justify the blocking of Mr Driscoll as a candidate by claiming he does not meet the criteria (again: because Mr Driscoll had appeared at an event where Ken Loach – who has not done anything quantifiably wrong – also appeared).

Here’s what happened when interviewer Victoria Derbyshire countered with a list of Mr Discoll’s actual achievements as North Tyne Mayor:

Incidentally…

Now, those are just the opinions of people who inhabit Twitter; the social media equivalent of the man or woman on the Clapham omnibus.

Perhaps you’d prefer the view of a mass media columnist?

The commentary is damning:

Keir Starmer said in January he wanted to “take back control” for local communities. The Labour leader wants them to have more say over jobs, transport, energy, climate change, housing, culture, childcare and finance. He wants to liberate what is now recognised as the most centralised state in Europe. So why, now, has the Labour leader decided that the people of the North of Tyne area will not be permitted to reselect their current mayor, Jamie Driscoll, to stand for Labour at the next election? Why did he agree in March that his predecessor as leader, Jeremy Corbyn, should not be reselected as MP for Islington North?

Whatever the perceived misdeeds of these two politicians, surely these are matters for their respective communities to decide on. Come to that, I notice in the past few weeks that, despite his devolution speech, Starmer wants no devolution of power over council tax rises, local housing decisions or the siting of wind turbines, among other things. Nor will he tolerate any nonsense from Scottish people about “taking back control” of Scotland.

Even before he finds himself in Downing Street, Starmer cannot bring himself to respect the local diversity that has long been Labour’s strength. He cannot allow his party to let the people of the north-east choose who it is they want to lead them. It is a very bad start.

The condemnation seems universal; everyone who doesn’t have an interest in opposing Mr Driscoll seems to be supporting him.

That means two things:

Firstly, the old lies about anti-Semitism aren’t going to work any more.

Secondly, it doesn’t matter who else is on Labour’s shortlist for the new North East Mayor job; if Jamie Driscoll isn’t on it, Labour won’t have a hope of winning the election.

Will Keir Starmer learn his lesson from this?

Probably not, sadly.

In fact, he’ll probably take revenge by setting his sights on two other metropolitan mayors who have supported Mr Driscoll – Steve Rotherham and Andy Burnham.

And that would be an even worse mistake.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg is set to lose his Parliamentary seat

Jacob Rees-Mogg: he’s probably cursing after seeing these poll results. But what kind of imprecation would this educated toff utter?

It’s turning into a bad week for Jacob Rees-Mogg (and a good week for the rest of us).

Not only has his Retained EU Law Bill been paused on its way through Parliament – possibly never to return (it is rubbish, after all), but…

Opinion polls are showing that he is likely to lose his North East Somerset Parliamentary seat in the next general election.

A swing of almost 30 points in the court of public opinion has been recorded in his constituency.

It’s understood that a Labour candidate would record more than 38% of the vote if the polls were open this weekend, whereas the senior Tory is only projected to fetch 34%.

Personally, I’d prefer it if the Green Party were doing better than Labour but there’s a bit of time yet before the election.

Source: Latest polls show Rees-Mogg on course to LOSE his seat as MP

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Is Whittome Labour’s latest hypocrite in the Corbyn/suspension/free speech controversy?

Nadia Whittome: her behaviour is all the more vexing because she has no reason to be loyal to Keir Starmer – he sacked her as a Parliamentary Private Secretary because she voted against a Bill that would have protected soldiers from prosecution if they participated in acts of torture overseas, and briefed the right-wing Guido Fawkes blog about the sacking BEFORE telling her.

A Labour MP who had been considered to be on the left of the party and who said Jeremy Corbyn should be reinstated when his membership was suspended has become a turncoat, it seems.

Despite her own comments about Corbyn, it seems Nadia Whittome does not believe that her peers in the party should have the same right, as she stated in a Tweet following a meeting of Nottingham East Labour Party (she is MP for that constituency but not a member of the CLP):

It seems the agenda of last Friday’s CLP meeting included a motion that called for Corbyn’s reinstatement, the lifting of disciplinary measures from others for discussing the issues as well as for the removal of David Evans, General Secretary of the Labour Party, who imposed Corbyn’s suspension and the ban on discussing it that led to the suspensions of other party members.

Ms Whittome objected to the motion, despite having spoken against Corbyn’s suspension herself, it seems.

What are we to make of that? That she considers herself to be above her party colleagues? That she agrees that, while she may discuss such matters with impunity, it is right that rank-and-file party members be suspended for daring to do so? That she thinks party members should not be allowed to register their opposition when party officers flout rules and regulations?

That’s how it looks to This Writer.

Worse, Ms Whittome passed comment on an incident in which a Jewish CLP member left the meeting, claiming they did not feel safe there.

It appears that all was not as she led people to believe. Here‘s a statement from the CLP itself:

“There was only one interruption during the meeting. This arose when one member stated that in his personal experience he had never witnessed any antisemitism in any of our meetings. As he continued with his personal view, another member shouted out – in a manner that some found to be aggressive – that he himself had suffered personal, antisemitic abuse from the person speaking, who was taken aback and stated that this wasn’t true; the Chair intervened and tried to calm things down. At this point the member who had interrupted declared that he no longer felt safe at the meeting and left.

“The member who left has changed his narrative on social media to stating that the member he accused had ‘witnessed an anti-Semitic attack’ on him rather than had attacked him personally.”

Ms Whittome also mentioned the possibility that disciplinary proceedings had been launched against a member of the CLP. This appears to be CLP chair Louise Regan, a former NUT president and (I really hope this has nothing to do with it) vice-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

It seems Ms Regan’s party membership was, in fact, suspended:

This can only be for allowing the motion to be heard (it was passed by 23 votes to 10). Ms Regan’s conduct during the meeting was described in the CLP statement as “exemplary” and Ms Whittome is said to have joined in thanking her for the way she chaired it.

If that was everything, it would be bad enough, but it seems even worse than that, as evidence has come to light claiming that Ms Whittome actually participated in a smear campaign against Ms Regan. Read:

Maybe Mr Kazmi has his own axe to grind (although, considering the number of Tweets by other people linking Ms Whittome with this AWL group, this seems doubtful). In any case, This Writer will be happy to hear what the MP has to say about all this.

At the moment, it seems likely she has fatally wounded her reputation among the very people on whom she would have to rely in order to be re-elected in any future Parliamentary poll.

And at the very least, it seems likely that she should expect a flood of complaints to Labour’s Governance and Legal Unit, that her comments have brought the party into disrepute – the very charge which, when used against her colleagues, she supported.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Local lockdown to hit northeast England – but why was it first announced on TV?

Speaking too soon: Robert Jenrick announces restrictions on northeast England, on the Peston TV show.

BBC news has announced – around midday today, September 17 – that the northeast of England will be subjected to stronger Covid-19-related restrictions because of increased infections there. It’s not quite a local lockdown but close.

I knew this last night because Robert Jenrick announced it on television, on Robert Peston’s ITV political chat show.

The only reason I didn’t publish a story straight away was fatigue (I had been awake for around 19 hours on the trot by then) – and also I wanted to know what Commons Spaker Lindsay Hoyle would have to say about this breach of regulations:

Some are saying this is another example of Dominic Cummings-style “government by media”, although I can’t see any advantage for the Tories in doing this.

Who benefits from Jenrick’s announcement, which came just 13 hours (and a bit) before the statement in Parliament?

The people of the northeast? No – the difference in timing still isn’t enough for them to properly prepare, if they need to.

The government? No – this is an admission that a government policy has failed.

Robert Jenrick? No – he was announcing something that nobody wanted and is more likely to be resented for it. In any case, he’s widely considered to be as bent as a nine-bob note (see his record of corruption on planning matters).

Robert Peston benefits, because the announcement was on his show.

But what’s the tactical advantage for the Tories? Are they trying to set up some kind of divide-and-rule rivalry between Peston and Piers Morgan, whose breakfast show can’t get government spokespeople because they’re afraid he’ll rip them to shreds?

That seems pointless because the Tories lose more than they gain, if they get another reprimand from Speaker Hoyle.

Perhaps Jenrick was speaking on his own initiative – a loose cannon, as it were.

If so, let’s hope he shot himself in the foot.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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More than half Tory candidates in NE England live hundreds of miles from their constituencies

Aren’t candidates in general elections supposed to live in – or at least near the constituencies they want to represent?

According to Pride’s Purge, many of the Conservative candidates in North East England live hundreds of miles away, in the south.

They are strangers who have no idea of the issues facing people in the North East – placeholders put there to do Boris Johnson’s bidding instead. So why would anybody vote for them?

The article states:

“The Tories … are probably hoping no-one has noticed that more than half of their candidates – 13 to be exact – live hundreds of miles away from the constituencies they’re hoping to win and represent:

Newcastle Central
– Tory candidate Emily Victoria Payne lives 275 miles away in Westminster
Newcastle East
– Tory candidate Robin Gwynn lives 294 miles away in Surrey
Newcastle North
– Tory candidate Mark Guy Lehain lives 230 miles away in Bedford
North Tyneside
– Tory candidate Dean Spencer Carroll lives 232 miles away in Shrewsbury
South Shields
– Tory candidate Oni Boghene Oviri lives 310 miles away in Croydon
Blaydon
– Tory candidate Adrian Norman Spencer Pepper lives 278 miles away in Westminster
Gateshead
– Tory candidate Jane Emma Macbean lives 266 miles away in Chesham
Easington
– Tory candidate Clare Ambrosino lives 278 miles away in Hammersmith
North Durham
– Tory candidate Ed Parson lives 285 miles away in Sevenoaks
North West Durham
– Tory candidate Richard John Holden lives 100 miles away in Clitheroe
Houghton and Sunderland South
– Tory candidate Christopher John Charles Howarth lives 274 miles away in Kensington
Sunderland Central
– Tory candidate Tom D’Silva lives 298 miles away in Kingston
Washington and Sunderland West
– Tory candidate Valerie Margaret Allen lives 162 miles away in Warrington

“Probably not all that surprising that a posh, southern-England based party like the Tories finds it impossible to persuade real north-easterners to represent them.”

And if real north-easterners don’t want to represent the Tories, then real north-easterners don’t want to vote for them. Right?

Source: More than half Tory candidates in North East live 100s miles away from constituencies | Pride’s Purge

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Female staff forced to give sexual favours for promotions at scandal-hit ambulance trust | Telegraph

The Tory MP sex scandal seems to have gone quiet – apart from Damian Green, of course – but it’s important to remember that sexual harassment isn’t confined to Westminster.

I would certainly hope that nobody actually thought that in any case but this story from the Telegraph appeared in This Site’s Facebook messages and seems worth a mention.

Female staff were groped and forced to give sexual favours for promotions at a scandal hit ambulance trust, a damning report has revealed.

Women at South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (Secamb) told investigators that ‘sexual predators’ within the organisation ‘groomed’ young workers while managers propositioned staff for sex.

The independent study, which is the largest ever undertaken into workplace ill-treatment, was commissioned following complaints in a staff survey last year, and overseen by Professor Duncan Lewis, of Plymouth University, a leading researcher into bullying and discrimination.

In a highly critical report published today, researchers said they were ‘shocked’ by levels of bullying and sexual harassment within the trust, which is also failing to meet targets for emergency calls. The authors found that ‘employees were living in daily fear.’

Investigators were told that ‘covert and overt’ sexualised behaviour was embedded in parts of the management structure.

Source: Female staff groped and forced to give sexual favours for promotions at scandal hit ambulance trust

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