The Official Monster Raving Loony Party

We are delighted to announce that we have finally got round to appointing our new Minister of Confessions. This is a particularly busy role in the lead up to Christmas as many former Prime Ministers, MP’s & Cabinet Advisors reveal details of their sordid antics to push sales of their latest books and diaries.

There was only one person who we deemed qualified enough to fulfil this demanding role and the party now welcomes the glorious king of confessions, Lord Robin Askwith, to the party that puts the party into party politics.
Chinners

Our 37th conference was held in the lovely town of Louth in Lincolnshire. It should have been our 38th as last year was cancelled. We held our promise to our Lincolnshire friends that we would be there this year and we were.

I arrived on the 16th, ten days early to make sure all was in order which it was at the time, but a couple of hiccups ensued. In the end it all worked out.

I stayed at The Pack Horse and spent my days wandering around Louth promoting our event. I did a couple of ‘Pod Casts’ and ‘Radio Interviews’. Loony’s started to arrive on Thursday night and we all had a ‘meet and greet’ in town.
Many more arrived on Friday and we filled all the hotels and guest houses in town.

We were at the ‘Cobbles Bar’ on Friday night and after a few hugs and “hello’s” and “its great to see you again”, we got under way with a very entertaining local belly dancing team called ‘The Arabian Delights’. They were followed by ‘The Faux Fibbers’, and ‘The Stantons’ featuring ‘Gilly’, a last minute fill in, well done boys. And of course ‘Mr Badaxe’!

‘Ben Young’ the Landlord had some special beer brewed for us called ‘Loony Party Loitering in Louth’, it was very popular.

Saturday started at 12 noon with our usual town pub crawl, which got very quickly named ‘Loony’s Lurking in Louth’, but not without an early session of belly dancing from our ladies.

We started at ‘Bens Bar’, then ‘The Kings Head’ and then ‘The Joseph Morton’, Wetherspoon, where we met up with the Wetherspoon photographer in readiness for a photo and story in the Winter edition of their magazine. The current edition of the Wetherspoons magazine featured our conference in Louth on page 101!

After the ‘Joseph Morton’ we moved on to ‘The Pack Horse’, ‘The Consortium’, then back to ‘Cobbles’.

The Consortium is only a very small micro brewery pub, we now hold the record for cramming the most customers in at once.

During that afternoon we held our annual ‘Cabinet Reshuffle’ much to the delight of the people in the market square. Yes we found an old bedroom cabinet. The great significance of that shuffle was that ‘Barmy Lord Brockman’ shuffled his way out and became our newly elected Vice Chairman.

Unfortunately our chairman ‘The Jersey Flyer’ was unable to be with us although he did have a consecutive mini conference in Jersey for our ‘Isles of Deliberation’ members.

Later in the afternoon came the ‘Party Leaders Speech’, thanking all who had stood in various elections, and all who had kept the party up and running through recent times. Plus congratulating our six elected town councillors. All this was followed by a ‘Loony Party Question Time’ chaired by Stephen Carlton-Woods a TV presenter who was working in conjunction with the documentary crew, what great fun that was!

Our evening session took place at ‘My Fathers Moustache’ with The Faux Fibbers as our opening act  and then the much awaited ‘Dr Diablo and the Rodent’ show. As good and as loud as ever, the show is so clever that its worth the extra noise.

Everything was caught on camera throughout the three days by a Radio Alty team, (radio Altricham) from Manchester. They were led by our friend Peter Scotson. A documentary is to be made for TV.

It was a great success, thank you to our Lincs Loony’s, who are Arty Pole, Badger and Sarah Mad Cow. Plus, of course, Ben Young for his never ending support. Thank you to Julie at the Pack Horse, and Sharon at the Kings Head, for looking after us and all the lovely people of Louth, for joining in and making us very welcome.

An extra special thank you to all our members old and new, just for being there. Here’s to the next one, if I don’t see you before-hand!

Howling ‘Laud’ Hope – Loony Party Leader.

Dale Fontaine one of Britain’s finest Elvis Presley tribute acts has been called to ‘The Gracelands’ in the sky. He was a very staunch Loony Party member, he had known and promoted Screaming Lord Sutch in the early days. He was also very prominent in raising thousands of pounds for different charities, with his ‘Echo’s of Elvis show’. He was also the star turn in the TV soap/sit com called ‘The Village’. It ran for a long time on Southern Television. He also appeared at our conferences in Hook twice and Fleet, when held in Hampshire. Plus he appeared down in Devon at our party HQ at the time. The Golden Lion Hotel, Ashburton. What made us also smile, was the fact that he could do a very good ‘Tommy Cooper’ act as well. More commonly known locally as Dave Hurrell, and more famously, as Dave the Plumber, that was his trade. Our condolences and memories are with his family right now.
So long my friend, you will be talked about for years to come, amongst all those that knew you. Give my regards to all our musical friends when you get there.
Your long time friend.
Howling ‘Laud’ Hope.

The conference will be held in September 2021 at ‘The Cobbles’ a very famous Louth meeting and music locale. Ben Young the landlord is a fine gentleman, I’m sure you will all get on very well with him and all the regulars.
Other pubs and bars around are prepared to join in, The Consortium, a local micro brewery have two Loony Juices on right now Howling ‘Laud’ Hop(e) and Lily the Pink Cider. It won’t run out, they brew their own.
Accommodation – Tell them who you are, and that you are with The Loony Party, they all know we are coming! Mention my name – Alan Hope.

• ‘The Kings Head Hotel’, ideal location, just off the Market Square. Speak to Sharon, 01507 602965
• ‘The Pack Horse’, speak to Julie 07969 089646 or 07305 140848
• ‘The Millers Daughter’ have rooms, call Charlotte, 07960871418.

There are others around, some only £75 for 3 nights, but a bus or taxi ride away. There are many more in the town centre.
Howling ‘Laud’ Hope your Party Leader.

After a lot of inactivity due to this ‘Covid thingy’, we were glad to get back on the campaign trail again. We’ve had three by-elections in a short space of time. The ‘Incredible Flying Brick’ stood for Hartlepool. Chesham and Amersham was next but we missed out on that one. The ‘Writ’ was announced on the Monday, requiring the papers in by Thursday. Although close to me I didn’t have time to initiate the paper work. Never mind, next came Batley and Spen in Yorshire, just south of Leeds. I was certainly up for this. We had fantastic help from Sir Archibald Stanton, who stood for us in Dewsbury in the General election, the constituency next door. He obtained the ten nominations, and arranged accommodation for me. Great work! I would also like to thank Dave and Teresa Diskin of the Beer Street public house in Dewsbury for making me welcome, and their customers for treating me as a local, we had a good few laughs. Nick the Brick was my official agent, his job was made much easier by Sir Archie’s efficacy.
Batley has a Wetherspoon, ‘The Union Rooms’ and with the kind permission of Tim Martin, I was able to use the premises as my meet and greet room. Becci and her staff were very amiable, We had an official photo taken outside featuring myself, Sir Archie, MP Thompson-Squire of Sheep Hill, and St Stephen ‘Ivar Biggun’ Boden. The picture and story will appear in the next ‘Spoons’ magazine.
News soon got around that I was there, just about all of the fifteen othe partys put in an appearance to say hello. It got very busy with interviews, pod casts, video’s and general media interest. I shared a stage with George Galloway on the hustings and other candidates, all very friendly towards me, but apparently not towards each other, so I heard.

The count night was very well organised, but because of social distancing, face masks, and only being allowed six count tickets, it didn’t have quite the same ambience as pre-covid elections. The Howling ‘Laud’, The Flying Brick, Sir Archibald Stanton, Mr R.U Seerius, Lady Helen Back, and Farming F’tang Dave attended the count. Ladbrokes had odds of 20/1 that we would come in the top 6, I know quite a few people who had a flutter on that including me. Alas we came 8th, in the top half mind you. Another 100 votes we would have all been in the money!

Never mind, we were there, we were seen, we have not gone away. We beat the SDP for the 3rd time running, their Party leader William Clouston and I had a £5 bet on who would get the most votes, ha ha. UKIP only beat us by 44 votes. They must all be running scared of being beaten by us by now.

Watch out next time, is the battle cry.
Howling ‘Laud’ Hope – Loony Party Leader.