Harborough is a large rural district council taking in all or part of three parliamentary constituencies. In the mid-1980s the only organised branch of the Liberal Party in the district was in Market Harborough, which meant that large parts of it were a bit of a mystery to us.
It sounds like an episode from a sitcom on local politics, but the effect of this was that when we heard the Liberal candidate had won a Harborough District Council by-election in Peatling Parva, we were delighted but had no clear idea where Peatling Parva was.
Soon afterwards, I won a by-election myself and got to know the councillor for Peatling Parva, the lovely Lisa Brown. This was so long ago that I find it natural to describe her as Yugoslavian. (Ask your grandparents.)
Sadly, Lisa did not hold her seat at the all-out elections the following year, even though they saw the Conservatives lost control of the council. She was replaced by an amiable Tory whose appearance gave you the impression he might play in a trad jazz band.
It turned out that Peatling Parva was not quite the backwater it sounds. Yes, it was a large rural ward, but it contained Bruntingthorpe, a military airfield of the Cold War era that was being turned over to commercial uses, including a proving ground for cars.
Not surprisingly, Bruntingthorpe generated much of the casework for the member for Peatling Parva, but the new Tory councillor had business interests there. So every time it came up in council, he had to declare an interest and leave the chamber.
I'm not sure where this rambling memoir is headed, so let's end by saying that this last point is a reminder that standards in local government are higher than they are at Westminster.
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