Thursday 22 February 2007

As seen (though not any more) on Wikipedia

I don't understand how Wikipedia works, but I'm told that the following has been removed from Hilary Armstrong's entry in the last couple of days:

Armstrong has never been popular in the constituency's demographically predominant Consett area, which was only very briefly represented by her late father. Since her involvement in the serious downgrading of Shotley Bridge Hospital, just outside Consett, in the last days of the Major Government but with her active collusion, she has been hated there.

Combined with her pronounced divergence from the social-democratic views of traditional Labour supporters in this traditional Labour area, Armstrong's neglect of that greater part of her constituency which falls within Derwentside means that, at the next General Election, a very substantial section of the Constituency Labour Party is expected to adhere to the Independent candidacy of well-known local, national and international political activist David Lindsay of Lanchester.

Lindsay is a former Labour Party member who holds traditional pre-Blair, pre-Militant Labour views of the kind that dominate the North-East in general and County Durham in particular. He was actively involved in the campaign to save Shotley Bridge Hospital, and he has close links (despite his removal from the Labour Party, which is simply ignored in practice by his powerful friends still in it) to the ruling Labour faction on Derwentside District Council, as well as to the highly influential Catholic Church in the area.

Consequently, the Labour Party no longer regards this seat as safe, and is understood to be urging Armstrong to retire. Armstrong, however, has been criticised for using her staff, at public expense, to attempt to engage the Standards Board for England, at public expense, to intimidate Lindsay and his supporters into withdrawing from the race. The British National Party has undertaken to contest this seat against Lindsay but not against anyone else, by definition including Armstrong or any successor favoured by her. It is not known how much contact she has had with that party in order to have arrived at this arrangement, or why she might consider it necessary in terms of what she perceives to be the views of her constituents.

And also that the following has been removed from the entry on Derwentside Independents:

There is a very firm expectation that the party, or at least its members as individuals and as Councillors, will support the well-known local, national and international Independent political activist David Lindsay when he contests the 2009 or 2010 General Election. Lindsay's relative youth, combined with his socially conservative and strongly patriotic views, would make his Independent candidacy extremely attractive to the party's supporters.

Well, I have to say that I am rather touched, and that I very much hope that this is true, as also that what the first one says about support from traditional Labour supporters and from Catholics is true. I really am going to have to stand now, aren't I!

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