DAMP

Frankly I don't really profess to one particular political
persuasion, convinced in my own mind that one party is just as bad as
another.

I suppose if I was pressed I'd say I was somewhere just to the centre
right of the right of the left of centre on some issues whilst being
decidedly on the right side of the centre left on others.

I've never really understood the term "political wet", presuming it
means walking from Whitehall to the house when the distribution of
precipitation is becoming increasingly predominant coincidental with
the absence of Macintosh and loss of umbrella.

In any event the particular constituency in which we reside has been
represented by the Conservative Member for generations past. Not only
would it be impossible single votedly to change that scenario, but, if
that means the avoidance of potential door knocking Politicians at
election time, I would rather preserve the status quo.

Such is the fervour of potential members of Parliament at such times if
they so much as get a whiff of another "X" marking the spot, that they
strongly rival those other two classes of most unwelcome visitors, the
traveling salesmen and the Bible Bashers...

Thus as far as I'm concerned if they wish they can go up their
respective polls just as far as they like.

The situation is similar in Middlethorpe.....

MIDDLETHORPE BLUE
N

ow under normal circumstances the announcement of a General election in
the picturesque peaceful rural conurbation of Middlethorpe in the Mire
(nestling serenely in its own brand of congenial squalor in the County
Borough of Toddlesworth on the Pee) would simply galvanise the
prospective candidates and their agents into stifled yawns. Local
elections would have the less dramatic effect of making them simply
turn over in bed for their forty first and subsequent winks.

Middlethorpe in the Mire was blue. True unadulterated, undiluted,
Conservative Tory blue. It had always been blue and, as far as the
local Council Majority Conservative Group were concerned come Hell,
high water, the flooding of the Pee, pestilence, subsidence, act of God
or other uninsurable risk it would remain so. Not to put too fine a
point on it, if someone pointed to Middlethorpe on the political map
they could be excused for thinking it was a lake.

Locally, most of the Councilors had served for years. Take the chairman
for example. Umpteen years of civic duty and umpteen thousand pounds of
taxpayer's money in attendance allowances. He'd seen five or six
central Governments rise and fall, been through Local Government
reorganisation with the Tories, Local Government re-reorganisation
under the Socialists and Local Government re-re-reorganisation back to
the pre-Socialist reorganisation in the period following our Maggie's
first dynasty. He held the record for the most number of committees
ever sat upon and had personally passed more minutes than the town hall
clock. This was principally since the timekeeping edifice had stopped
ticking at 11.33 during the V.E.Day celebrations and had never tocked
since.

On a National scale, the present Parliamentary incumbent, one
Darracliffe Ainscough M.P. had served the constituency for many years
establishing an enviable reputation for abject mediocrity. He was
considered to be somewhat left of the centre right of the party's
leftwardly looking right wing on Foreign Policy whilst certainly more
right of the centre hard left in matters closer to home. As such both
political pundits and opposition parties considered him to be a WET,
when in truth considering his initials and Parliamentary abbreviation
he was merely D.A.M.P.

Some years earlier he had succeeded his father Clarence..who at one
time during his youth was considered somewhat limp wristed..but became
C.A. M.P. Political historians have since failed to comprehend how
Ainscough senior came to be ultimately ermine enrobed and thrust into
the House of Lords, since his maiden speech in the Commons lasted
nearly thirty seconds and for the next twenty odd years he did not seek
to trouble the publishers of Hansard further. Thus he was presumed to
have been sent to the Lords out of harms way and as a sure passage to
certain and permanent obscurity.

Meanwhile Ainscough junior catapulted to fame by being best runner up
in the "Find a new slogan for the Party " contest in which, inspired by
signs in the backs of cars like.."Engineers do it on the drawing board"
and "Surf boarders do it standing up" he penned the immortal phrase,
"Conservatives do it with a three line whip."

Political observers had early foretold that young Ainscough had Cabinet
potential, being a total nonentity ideally suited for the prerequisite
of being placed in any cabinet..i.e. first being stuffed and then
mounted.

Such was the blue streak which ran through the Middlethorpe electorate
that alternative voting methods were mooted at one time. One proposal
put forward was to pre-print the crosses on the ballot papers. This,
however, was thought to be undemocratic. If the voters of the
Toddlesworth and Middlethorpe constituency were entitled to exercise
their individual prerogatives then so be it. Rather than accept their
votes as foregone conclusions, better perhaps merely to add a subtle
hint or two. Thus were the traditional pencils in voting booths
dispensed with in favour of pens...Blue ones. Another suggestion was to
try one of those phone in voting systems like they have in certain TV
quiz programmes and the Contest to see which ditty would represent
Great Britain at the Eurobore Song Contest.

Feasibility studies were made but the results from a pilot scheme were
discouraging. Much of this could have been the result of the
inadequacies of the Town Hall telephone system..... ( a subject covered
in more detail in another chronicle)... but, of the four hundred and
twenty six people eligible to vote on the electoral role, 78 per cent
didn't vote, 68 per cent of the remaining 22 per cent voted at least
twice, 27 people by pushing either the right buttons in the wrong
sequence or the wrong buttons in the right sequence managed to register
2967 votes between them and the remaining calls were made up of 16
wrong numbers, (presumably achieved by pushing the wrong buttons in the
wrong sequence) half a dozen fax numbers, three answerphone machines
and a car phone.

The car phone call had proved a big disappointment.

Members of the Darracliffe Ainscough Re-election Campaign Committee
believed they had discovered a sure way of increasing campaign funds on
overhearing ....presumably someone in the know...extolling the virtues
of a certain racehorse which was, apparently, about to canter home in
the three thirty at Kempton Park at very favourable odds. Mention was
made that profits could be made.
Suffice it to say that members duly backed the beast, which, as
suggested cantered past the winning post. Unfortunately the other eight
runners had galloped past some minutes earlier

Other Public Opinion Polls held throughout the width and breadth of the
Constituency confirmed that the majority of voters believed that Labour
was what women experienced during childbirth, Democrats were Americans
who weren't Republicans, Liberal was what some women were who
eventually suffered Labour (whether democratically or not was not
stated on the questionnaire) and Greens was a collective term for
members of the cabbage family.

In terms of strong political opposition, the Liberal Democrats had
never posed a serious threat. Rumors still abound that the last
prospective Liberal candidate was invited in twenty five Acacia Avenue
about fifteen years ago and has never been seen since. Whether or not
he or she had a chance to brandish a manifesto is pure conjecture. It
is pure speculation that his or her mortal remains remain bricked up in
the foundations of the Grannex. It is pure coincidence that the
planning application for the said grannex holds the world speed record
for the unqualified planning approval by the appropriate
sub-committee.

Like I said..Middlethorpe was blue...under NORMAL circumstances. For
years, generations even, the blues had seen off every challenge mounted
by the reds, the yellows and even those of some of the more fringe
political persuasions. But now there was a new challenge to the
blues...and they were the GREENS.

Under such harrowing circumstances and following the Prime Minister's
election call a hastily arranged social gathering of the Tory group
took place in the lounge bar of the Middlethorpe Wise Owl Tavern
...Well, no self respecting True Blue would ever be seen dead
frequenting the Toddlesworth Red Lion....to consider both the
suitability and position of the aforementioned M.P's Electoral Agent,
Councilor Rupert Ponsonby-Green, who, under threat of being permanently
de-hyphenated...and not on the National Health, said in his defence
that it was not until recently that he'd come to realise the political
sensitivity of the latter part of his name. To that end he wished to
place on record that he, Mrs Ponsonby-Green and the offspring
Ponsonby-Greens were, although partially green in name by act of birth
or marriage, positively blue by political persuasion.

Some doubt was cast over whether the Councilor's distant second cousin,
one Digby Ponsonby-Green, was in fact blue because he was a vegetarian
and could therefore be Green. However since he was still a regular at
the Toddlesworth Red Lion he was probably a socialist. If he was a
Socialist he could perhaps be left. Notwithstanding that since he
wasn't standing as a prospective candidate in the election he could
stay left because that was all right......perhaps.

Suffice it to say that after the hustle of the hustings and the
expectation of the final count, Albert Stoic, Worshipful Mayor of
Middlethorpe and the Returning Officer on all occasions of an electoral
nature, merely confirmed what the electorate knew already as D.A. was
re-suffixed M.P for a further term with an increased majority in direct
proportion to the increase in the voting population.