They're under orders for race to county hall, Teesdale Mercury

They're under orders for race to county hall

Apr 17, 2008

THE final list of candidates has been announced for the forthcoming elections to the reorganised Kremlin on the hill in Durham. On May 1, you will have a varied and wonderful selection of people to choose from.  Remember that on April 1, Teesdale District Council announced that anyone who votes in these elections will receive a refund of 25 per cent of this year's council tax.  

Unfortunately, this offer only extends to those over the age of eighty who walk to the polling station stark naked. Still, if that rules you out, just whistle a happy tune as you and your neighbours hop and skip to the school hall, thinking, as you do, what a great and glorious gift it is to have the democratic prerogative. Well, something like that, anyway.

There are a few surprises in this year's list, but quite a lot of familiar old faces,too.

 The Labour party has a really interesting new candidate. Robert Mugabe, 128, born in Eggleston, says that it's time to give youth a chance. His background is in dictatorship and applied election manipulation.  

When elected, he says his first priority will be to assume the title of Leader for Life of the new council.  Several of those who challenged him for the nomination have withdrawn, claiming to be suffering from unusual ailments. His policy is to encourage inflation to rise so that council tax won't cost so much in the future.

The Conservatives have broken new ground by selecting Sir Alistair Ring-Binding (age uncertain) to bear aloft the banner of freedom. They are proud to have been the first  to choose a candidate who is clinically dead. Sir Alistair's wife, the formidable Lady Philadelphia, said that she was ‘so,so proud' that Big Al was da man. "My darling husband is the stability choice," she said at a poorly-attended press conference on the grouse moors. "You know where you are with a dead candidate - no surprises or unkept promises, just solid, reliable normality." Current betting has the late Ali B marginally ahead.

In Lib-Dem, land the recent revelation that their leader has had thirty-odd serious lovers has sparked a local controversy. The hand-wringing, lentil-munching, eco-friendly members went for a day-long worry-in about the environment before choosing a compromise candidate in the shape of Tosher, a four-year-old Sufffolk tup with a fairly no-nonsense attitude to love-making.  

Spokesperson Adrian Hadrian sent an election message by semaphor (to save the planet) saying that in Tosher they believed that they had found the perfect spokesanimal. Tosher, utterly unimpressed, merely asked, "Where's them ewes as yer promised, like?"

The Teesdale Really Quite Independent But Don't Ask Me For An Opinion On Anything Independent Party Only It Isn't Really A Party Party have chosen their own compromise candidate.  

This decision was arrived at by allowing all their interested parties and ex-parties and I'm not talking to you any more parties to just slug it out in a field till only one bloke was left standing.  He will have a single, clarion policy of believing in whatever seems most likely to be popular.

All women everywhere are represented by the Scottish National Party candidate and sitting MP, Aileen Lochlomond, elected to Westminster with a landslide majority following a map-reading failure in Party HQ. 

"As soon as I'm returned, y'ken, myself, m'faither and all m'clan will declare Teesdale to be an outpost of the new independent Scottish state, nicky nocky noo, see you pal, and who do y'think yir lookin' at y' sassenach beastie?"

It's leadership like this which has led us to where we though we might have not otherwise been.

So much for all the predictable, boring, conventional candidates.  

Young voters may wish to support the radical alternative to all these.  

The British Absolutely Trivial Society (BATS) has broken the mould completely. Their candidate is Doreen Smith, aged 51, who is a part-time librarian, married with two children who are both doing well.  

She enjoys shopping,taking her dog for a walk and easy-listening music. At weekends she goes caravaning with her husband, Alan.  

If elected, she intends to seek lower taxes, less crime and getting out of people's way. Robert Mugabe denounced her candidature as "frivolous and  likely to bring serious politics into disrepute". 

Results will be announced on May 2. Galgate council offices will self-destruct shortly afterwards.

First published in the Mercury, April 9, 2008