IS BIG GRAVY JUMPING ON THE GRAVY TRAIN?

It's June 2002, and Hartlepool's Labour MP, Peter Mandelson goes bananas upon hearing the news that a candidate whose main election manifesto proposal is free quantities of the nutritious fruit for all primary age schoolchildren, the town's first (and only) directly elected mayor. His name is Stuart Drummond, and one of the key skills he brings to this important role is his ability to perform in public. That's as H'Angus, the monkey mascot for Hartlepool United Football Club!

More monkey business in Hartlepool

byHARRY BLACKWOOD

Go anywhere in the world and you can't fail to find someone who is familiar with the Hartlepool monkey hanging legend. From Barcelona to Buenos Aries folk have heard how the good people of the town hung the poor animal thinking it was a French spy.

But there's another bit of monkey business that Hartlepool has become associated with. It was

Stuart Drummond, Mayor of Hartlepool
in 2002.

an event that totally changed the way I view politics and people. A turning point in my life.

The day that Hartlepool United's football mascot won the poll and became one of the very first directly elected mayors in the country, taught me how the political system can be used by people for their own selfish agendas. It also led to my sacking but we'll put that part of it on the back burner.

When H'Angus the Monkey decided to throw his banana into the ring and stand for election to the £60,000 a year post, it was done as a joke. The Hartlepool United football club chairman paid his election deposit and supporters of the club and a local rugby club threw themselves behind his campaign.

Stuart Drummond, the man in the monkey suit, promised free bananas for all school kids in the town and submitted an interesting curriculum vitae to the local newspaper of which I was editor, boasting of a degree and proficiency in a number of languages. It did make us wonder why he was working in a call centre on a pittance but hey, did it matter, he was a joke.

As it turned out it did matter. He won.

BEER, FOOTBALL AND FISH AND CHIPS

Peter Mandelson, Prince of Darkness (left) and former Prime Minister and War Criminal Tony Blair (right).

How Blair and Mandelson Hijacked the Labour Party.

byHARRY BLACKWOOD

I'm a man with a very good constitution, so there's not very much that makes me feel nauseous. But if I cast my mind back to the victory celebrations following Labour's 1997 election success, I'm guaranteed to come over all bilious.

The sight of Podgy Prescott dancing with his tarty wife was nauseating enough and the sight of Mandy, Prince of Darkness singing along to "Things Can Only Get Better" had me reaching for the sick bucket. But what really did it for me was all of those 'genuine, ordinary hardworking' Labour supporters worshipping at the feet of Blair like he was some sort of Messiah. Oh yeah Messiah, at criminal, murderer and money grabbing con man.

It still boils my piss to this day thinking back how smarmy Blair arrived in the former mining village of Trimdon (just a few miles from my front door) and started glad handing local party members as he laid on his best acting to ingratiate his way into getting one of the safest Labour seats in the country.

It was truly sickening to hear local party chairman John Burton regaling people with the story about how Blair had turned up at his house one night and there was European football on the television "Tony sat and watched the match with a can of beer and we didn't talk politics" or some such bollocks was what Burton used to tell people ad nauseum. What Burton failed to realise was that Blair would have drunk horse piss filtered through a shitty sock and watched reruns of Crossroads if it meant he'd secure the nomination.