A birdie or a bogey?

Another candidate for the prestigious* parliamentary constituency of Scarborough and Whitby has been announced, this one from the Yorkshire Party. His name is Lee Derrick, and he is a member of Whitby Town Council, so he is local. But he has a global ambition, as his company, Blue Spinach explains: ‘For ten years we have provided the global golfer with memorable travel experiences throughout England, Ireland, and Scotland. Over the last five years, we have also been working successfully in Mexico and South Africa which have grown in popularity for those seeking unique golfing experiences further afield. As a company we consider ourselves forward thinking and are always open to new opportunities, consequently, we will strive to deliver unique, innovative and inspirational destinations. Planned for the near future are exciting destinations such as the Dominican Republic, India, Thailand, and Vietnam.’

Now who could possibly raise concerns about the desire of the global golfer to seek out the 19th hole of some elite Vietnamese golf club? This surely is an activity that should be encouraged. But perhaps not. If you look at the Yorkshire Party’s website, you will see that they consider themselves very eco-friendly and support tough action on climate change. Boosting your air miles merely to play golf on the other side of the world seems hard to reconcile with that. But hey! It cannot be any worse than going on holiday for any other activity, can it? I am just being anti-golfist. And I have flown on holiday myself, so let’s not get all precious about it.

​The Yorkshire Party has grand ambitions for God’s County. They want a devolved assembly with full-on subsidiarity. I wouldn’t object to that. But by definition, their plans could only succeed if the UK government was minded to approve them. The Yorkshire Party does not elucidate on how it could achieve that, nor which other party or parties they believe they could work with. Another lost deposit and perhaps a few balls in the rough for the Yorkshire Party on December 12th, I suspect.

*We are home after all to the Manor of Northstead, the Stewardship of which permits an MP to legally resign from the House of Commons. The current (very recent) Steward is John Bercow. Previous Stewards include David Cameron and Peter Mandelson. But they never seem to pay us a visit.