Tory group leader on Blackpool Council resigns after row with Tory MP, but that's not the most interesting thing about him

BBC News reports:

The leader of Blackpool Council's Conservative group has resigned from the role after falling out with one of the town's Tory MPs.

Councillor Tony Williams has led the Tory group for the past eight years.

He said he signed a letter of no confidence in Blackpool South MP Scott Benton and was then suspended from the Conservative party, so he subsequently stood down.

The letter, which was signed by a number of other Tory councillors, asked the controversy-hungry Benton to stand down at the next election.

But I don't want to tell you that.

Tony Williams grew up in Blackpool, played in a number of groups there and unsuccessfully auditioned to join the town's most famous group, Jethro Tull, in 1968.

He was to play with them on a US tour 10 years later after Tull's bass player John Glascock became to ill to continue. (He died the following year.)

In between these two encounters with Jethro Tull, Williams was a member of a number of groups. In 1972 he joined Stealers Wheel, which had been formed earlier that year in Paisley by Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan.

And it was the line up with Williams that recorded the band's self-styled first album. Which means (as Discogs confirms) that he played bass on Stuck in the Middle with you.

Perhaps showing an early talent for resignation, he had left the band by the time it was released as a single.

Later. And here he is being introduced to the crowd at Madison Square Garden in 1978 by Ian Anderson.