YESTERDAY listeners to BBC Radio Four were treated to the latest of Tony Blair’s increasingly frequent political interventions, this time bewailing the disarray of the political “centrism” that is in fact nothing more than his own collection of opinions.

In 2020, I shall be contesting the new seat of Durham West and Teesdale, most of which is where Pat Glass MP will be retiring.

I shall be doing so without any party designation, not even the word “Independent”.

I am not a member of any political party, but I am part of numerous partially overlapping networks of political interdependence locally, nationally and internationally.

Since he has taken to reasserting himself in British politics, I challenge Mr Blair to declare that he is the Labour candidate for this open seat here in his old County Durham stomping ground. Either that, or to shut up and go away.

David Lindsay, Lanchester