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actually sifting through candidates! For me this was too grim for words, so I found a list of ‘unacceptables’ and banged on their doors. My favourite was a house with a brass plate engraved ‘Mr and Mrs Dave the Deal’. Another joy was going to a mock Palladian mansion with the most amazingly expensive furniture and paintings. Here in the great hall was an enormously obese haulier throwing darts at a board adjacent to a Gainsborough. These guys were loaded, and donated, but the local party was just too snooty to talk to them.
    Once, I popped my card through the door of a bed and breakfast. The poor chap had had a little spot of bother with the police over some minor matter regarding guns. He wasso delighted to hear from me that he offered to drive voters to the poll on election night. What was so amazing was that he rolled up with chauffeurs in full livery driving Rollers. Can you imagine driving up to a Tory voter on a council estate with a Rolls-Royce and a liveried driver saying, ‘This is Mr Hayes’s lift to take you to the polling station’?
    However, there was one minor hiccup. A couple of Labour pensioners decided to take advantage and let slip to the driver that they were actually going to vote for my opponent. I asked him how he dealt with it. ‘Oh, I dropped them in the middle of nowhere and told them to fuck off.’ Not my proudest moment. But the damage was done. I dreaded the headlines. Mercifully, they never came.
    A few months before the election, I appeared in court for a young couple who were being evicted from their flat because of drunken parties and an infestation of rats. In evidence, it appeared that they were a rather pleasant pair having a bit of fun. I asked the girl about the rat infestation. She smiled sweetly and told the court that they indeed had a pet rat. I enquired if she had a photograph of it. At that she did better and produced the rat from her pocket. I thought that the old judge was going to have a fit. Far from it, by chance he was a rat fancier, picked the horrible little thing up and tickled his tummy. It transpired that the landlords were just trying to get the property back. So I gave the landlord and his wife absolute hell in the witness box and won the case.
    During the election I banged on the door of rather an imposing property. To my horror it was opened by the landlord and his wife. This was going to be a nightmare. So I apologised for disturbing them and said I wouldn’t dream of asking themto vote for me after giving them such a rough time in court. To my amazement I was offered an outstretched hand, a smile and not just an offer of support but a donation too. Their logic was that, if I could move heaven and hell against them, what could I do
for
them?
    Elections are a funny old business.
    Although I was delighted to win in 1983, I felt sorry for the guy I beat, the veteran left-winger Stan Newens. I made a particular point of devoting a large part of my acceptance speech to paying tribute to him, as he was an excellent constituency MP and a thoroughly decent man. Politics can be a rough game and no matter how good you are you can’t beat a big swing.
    At least I didn’t make the mistake of my old pupil master, Ernle Money, who totally unexpectedly beat Sir Dingle Foot in Ipswich in 1970. Ernle didn’t even bother to roll up for the count; he just went to the White Swan and got very, very drunk. When his agent realised that Ernle was going to win and have to make a speech he scoured the pubs and eventually found him in a heap. The poor chap couldn’t even walk, let alone talk. So the agent went back and made the speech for him, along the lines that Mr Money held Sir Dingle in such high esteem he felt it quite inappropriate to say a few words. Deft footwork.
    Surgeries (they are now called advice bureaux) were very rewarding and sometimes a little peculiar. My first constituent was a 93-year-old Chinese man who came to pay his respects, bless him. He didn’t