Another blast from the past.  This piece was published on the website on April 28th 2005 when, it seems, a General Election was looming:

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The other evening after work I was wrestling with the cat for squatting rights on the sofa when Danny, my stepson, burst in and demanded to know who I would be voting for in the General Election.

"What General Election?" I started to ask before realising that, as the founding member of an esteemed quiz team, I shouldn't really have to confer on a question like this.

"Labour," I muttered enthusiastically.

"But you don't even like Tony Blair", protested Danny.

"Yes, there is that", I conceded, "but I don't like anybody else either and anyway I'm a natural born Socialist so it would be class treason not to vote for Labour like wot I've always done....

"Yes, Danny, I know that Labour is no longer a Socialist party but you are missing the point.  No Danny, I'm not losing my temper, but Jesus wept, you're doing bloody politics for bloody 'A' levels so the least I expect is that you might be intelligent enough to follow the cogency of my superior argument?  Now go away and practice your iPod 'cos I'm busy trying to listen to THE ARCHERS.   And it wouldn't do YOU any harm to listen to intelligent worthwhile programmes once in a while".

Danny's a good lad really but, like most young people today, he refuses to grasp the complexities of being a tired old git.

Many hours later when I woke up (with the cat snoozing contentedly on my chest), I got to thinking.  Maybe I should vote for somebody else.  But who?  The Greens sound like a nice bunch but they might feel inclined to put a tax on unreconstructed neanderthals like me whose idea of a nice dinner is steak and chips with lots of salt and hold the salad.

The BNP are running, as well I know, 'cos I saw their Party Political Broadcast the other evening.  I hadn't meant to watch it but I was sleeping with the cat on the sofa and it was on when I woke up.  They seem very sweet and caring.  They were singing a lovely English folksong à la Ralph McTell all about a misunderstood young lad who was forced to become a nutter on the streets of London 'cos when he was off fighting those racist Argies loads of gay black Albanians with turbans and Irish accents took over his bedroom and brutalised his teddy bear.  I felt very sorry for the nutter and for his teddy but all the same......I'd be worried that they were only pretending to be sweet and caring and when they finally got into power they might start shooting everybody that wasn't born in Basingstoke.

I was getting desperate now.  What about Charlie Kennedy?  Seems like a nice bloke.  He looks reassuringly like a human wreck and he's got an accent that baffles Sassenachs so we would have a lot in common.  And yet..... Lib Dem.... doesn't sound very macho does it?  Not the type of party that could take care of itself if it got into a fracas outside the Pack Horse in Levenshulme on a Saturday night.  Nah, sorry Chas.

Then I leapt up with a brainwave (much to the annoyance of the cat).  Why shouldn't WITHQUIZ put forward its own candidate?   I would be prepared to nominate Mike Bath for P.M. if any of you lot would second him.  I really think he would appeal to the Great British public.  He's clever but not too clever. He's good at communicating - he's got his own website for Chrissakes!  He's about the right age - not baby-faced like that Hague tosser a few years ago but not as old as the Pope either.  And he looks nice and avuncular.  I think he would look ever so wholesome kissing babies and pets.  Though we would probably have to airbrush out the pint of beer and the packet of pork scratchings if we want the pictures to appear on the front page of The Guardian.

We'll need a name of course.  The Bath'ist Party sounds good but I think it has been used before by a friend of George Galloway's.  The Liberal Opsimaths has got a nice ring to it but we don't want to alienate the large percentage of the electorate who don't own a dictionary.  The Friends of the Electric Pigs Party?  You're being fcekin' stupid now.

I'm not very good at manifestos.  Perhaps Ivor could run us one up when he gets back from the pub.  Keep it simple Ivor.  Something along the lines of:

"If elected we promise to get rid of the rat race. We will achieve this by forcing all the successful people in British society to take all society's losers out every Wednesday evening and buy them a pint."

Yes, I know it sounds a bit too much like ragged-trousered Socialism but it might just work.   And at least we would finally be spared the excruciating embarrassment of having to don a bloody red nose every time we feel like helping those worse off than ourselves.

Sheamus McGuevara