THE BYE-BYE ELECTION

IT HAS COME TO A PRETTY PASS in politics when a chap is not allowed to be elected to the House of Commons having lied about a rival candidate during the campaign without being hauled up before a magistrate and having the result voided. This was the unfortunate case of Phil Woolas, hapless former Minister of State, now unceremoniously thrown out of Parliament and given the lesser punishment of being thrown out of the Labour Party.

OLDHAM EAST AND SADDLEWORTH, where such untoward activities took place, has obviously come a long way since the north of England was a network of rotten boroughs returning MPs who had nothing to do with their constituencies and were little more than decent, if slightly corrupt, chaps named by their parties in London to go up north and come back elected by the ignorant unwashed toiling in the fields.

YET TRADITION DIES HARD in the hills, dales and vales of the counties of our two historic ruling royal families. Oldham is carrying the flag for Lancashire, but, not to be outdone, Barnsley in Yorkshire is grabbing the headlines with the first ever standing MP to be found guilty of “fiddling” expenses. Eric “bar t’at” Illsley, pictured above, Labour MP for Barnsley Central for a few more days – until he gets sent to prison to join Labour’s pioneering jailbird David Chaytor – fought tooth and nail against the charges of corruption, almost, in an excellent show of XVIII century arrogance, suggesting that he deserved the right to swindle “t’ common folk”. We wish him well; and we wish the Labour party all the best at the coming by-election.

IN THE MEANTIME WE HAVE TODAY’S BY-ELECTION, which sees Conservative versus Liberal Democrat for the first time since the Condems came to power. Common sense would suggest that Labour’s Debbie Abrahams will be a new girl in the hot seat shortly after midnight. Yet we wait and see. Obviously, due to the abysmal performance of the two government parties on all fronts, no one will be sticking up for Condems, so I live in hope of seeing a swing to one of the more interesting parties. These are: Mr David Bishop, from Nottingham, standing for the Bus-Pass Elvis Party; Loz Kaye, from Manchester, standing for the Pirate Party of The United Kingdom, Stephen Morris, English Democrats – Putting England First, and my old friend The Flying Brick, from Ashbourne, Derbyshire, for The Official Monster Raving Loony Party.

The staid folk of Oldham East and Saddleworth will no doubt not vote en masse for these chaps, nor will Barnsley do anything radical as soon as Illsley is clapped in irons and we have an election there. If the Camelegg has its way these will be among the last of the by-elections, when they introduce proportional representation with a list system in the middle of next year.