Well, the run up to Christmas and the New Year was busy enough, launching our range of Co-ale-ition beers and what have you, phew ! I flew out to Malta for a rest, but no rest for the wicked, a By-election was called for the 13^th of Feb. I initially intended to be the candidate thinking that it would be in March, April or May, but no, the date fell all wrong for me. I had other commitments and was unable to do this one, or at least have the time to give it my best.
Wheels within wheels now, some three years ago I was invited up to Northenden, Manchester to officiate at the Boat Race on the Mersey. Northenden just happened to be part of this constituency, and of course having made quite a few friends up that way, it came as no surprise that Captain Chaplington-Smythe stepped forward and proclaimed that he would stand for us if we needed a candidate, well we did, and what a good job he did!  The Flying Brick was on hand, travelling up from Derbyshire,  being the Captains agent and getting the papers in on time.
You will have seen the Captain at work on his video, which can be found elsewhere on this site, and an excellent crew he had behind him, Andy ‘Casablanca’ Cameron,  Horratio Hornblower, the wonderful Emma Chapman, the ‘Son of the Desert’ Bob Hickson and Gareth Edwards the Manager of our constituency HQ ‘The Crown Inn at Northenden. Also all the Captain’s fan club’ and the wonderful staff. I managed to get up there for the last four days to help with campaigning, what weather it wasn’t, it was not very good for campaigning.
The count night was as good as many we have been too, the Captain’s entrance was phenomenal, a big cheer soon gets the cameras whirring. What a wonderful group of posers we were. The TV comment was “its not all over yet, it’s  just the loonys entering the count”. The outcome was that we got 288 votes, not bad first time in. The Lib Dems were a bit miffed, they got less than 1,000 more than us, not good, for a so called major party, half in power. Of course they lost their deposit, but had they had got the 288 votes that were cast for us they would have retained it.
So you see it’s not a wasted vote, voting Loony after all! Joining us at the count was Chris ‘Soup Kitchen’ Bailkoski, he owns the best Night Club in Manchester, look him up if ever your there.Anyways a good time was had by all, a lot of fun, and all looking forward to the next time, and a definite contingent from Manchester will be at our conference in Wales in September.
You know that I started off ‘Wheels within Wheels’ well if I had never stood against David Cameron in the last General Election 2010 in Witney, I would have never have met Bob Hickson he was there at the Laurel and Hardy convention, and I would never have known anybody from Wythenshaw or Northenden had it not been for him!

The Howling ‘Laud’ has spoken.