Lord Bonkers' Diary: Wandering Bodmin Moor at full moon and devouring constituents

Yes, Jeremy Thorpe really did pester the voters from a hovercraft that summer and Paul Tyler was on board. Lord Tyler's lawyers have asked me to point out, however, that at no time did he turn into the Beast of Bodmin at full moon or devour his then constituents.

I bet he did though.

Tuesday

Do you remember when hovercraft were all the rage? The boffins told us that within a decade we would have one each and use them to commute to the moon. As it turned out, they proved a great disappointment, but it was aboard a hovercraft that I first discovered this charming resort. Jeremy Thorpe had hit upon the idea of visiting the beaches of the South during the summer of 1974 to firm up the Liberal vote in anticipation of a second general election that autumn. 

I think it fair to say that we met with a Mixed Reception from holidaymakers – it was the way the natives of Trescothick Bay lobbed bottles at us that convinced me the village was a nest of free-thinkers among whom I should like to spend more time. 

Not everyone saw things that way. Poor Paul Tyler was so traumatised that he could be found 25 years later wandering Bodmin Moor at full moon and devouring constituents who had lacked the sense to bolt their doors, bar their shutters and remain in their cottages. Thank goodness one of the Wise Woman of Wing’s tinctures sorted him out!

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Earlier this week...

• Searching the rock pools for "sea anomalies"

In which Jeremy Thorpe, John Pardoe and Paul Tyler tour selected resorts of Cornwall and Devon by Hovercraft

The summer of 1974 was enlivened by Jeremy Thorpe and other Liberal MPs touring the beaches of Britain by hovercraft, in anticipation of a general election in the autumn. Harold Wilson duly called one for October.

Whether people enjoying a seaside holiday would  be in the mood to meet politicians is a point you hope the party considered first. Anyway, here is a report from the  West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser  (15 August 1974) looking forward to such a tour by Thorpe, John Pardoe and Paul Tyler. There's a mention too for Edward Sara, the Liberal candidate for Falmouth and Camborne.

In this era hovercraft were very much seen as a mode of transport of the future. There would be displays of miniature ones at top-end village fetes.

As it turned out, there's a lot to be said for the Jonathan Meades theory that in Britain the future happened briefly in 1969.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Two of my sturdiest gamekeepers on the Thames-Clyde Express

Lord Bonkers pretends he doesn't read this blog, but I see he's picked up my interest in the idea that there are big cats living wild in the English countryside. And I hadn't heard of the Gloucestershire Incident until now.

The orchard doughty, a rough club with which Lord Bonkers' gamekeepers are routinely armed, is named after Susan Doughty (who sometimes called herself Susan Orchard Doughty), who was Liberal Democrat MP for Guildford between 2001 and 2005.

And despite Lord Bonkers fervent belief, there is no truth in the rumour that Paul Tyler metamorphosed into the Beast of Bodmin whenever there was a full moon. 

Thursday

If you ask my opinion, this ‘DNA testing’ is here to stay. Terribly Clever, don’t you think? News reached me the other day that traces of a big cat have been found on a sheep’s carcass in Cumbria. You will guess what my first thought was, but my agents have made extensive enquiries and established that Paul Tyler was nowhere near the lakes and fells at the time. 

As a result, I have alerted the ALDC to a possible hazard to deliverers with remote rural rounds and, remembering the unfortunate loss of a county councillor from Gloucestershire in David Steel’s day, dispatched two of my sturdiest gamekeepers on the Thames-Clyde Express to mind the aforementioned Farron until the polls close on 4 July.

Trust in God and don’t forget your orchard doughty, as Cromwell would have put it.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Earlier this week...

• I imagine he found Africa pleasantly civilised after that
• The Convent of Our Lady of the Ballot Boxes
• "The sort of places our schoolfriends’ parents live"

Paul Tyler is a direct descendant of Cornish hero Bishop Trelawny

I've seen it claimed and now I have confirmation from the Beast's horse's mouth. The Liberal Democrat peer and former MP Paul Tyler is a direct descendant of the Cornish hero Bishop Jonathan Trelawny.

To be precise, Paul tells me he is the bishop's great great great great great great great great grandson. That's eight greats.

As the glee club at Liberal Democrat conferences never seems to know the tune of Trelawny, here's the Holman-Climax Male Voice Choir to help us.

The Joy of Six 1185

Nick Harvey and Paul Tyler talk to Arthur Snell about their book Can Parliament Take Back Control? He says they have "produced a short, easily readable book which contains a set of clear proposals, around elections, parliamentary procedure, reform of the upper house and standards in public life. Although it’s just about parliament, this book could be titled How to Fix Britain, because if its recommendations where followed, our national life would be improved immeasurably." 

Post-Covid transport recovery, supporting the night economy, from-the-ground-up regeneration, harnessing Smart Cities tech. It's all in the Liberal Vision for Urban Britain from Matthew Pennell.

"'Discipline has broken down completely and the party feels ungovernable,' a senior Tory adviser told HuffPost UK. 'The PM has managed to anger pretty much all sides of the party, which is quite the achievement.'" Kevin Schofield on Rishi Sunak's impossible job.

Moheb Costandi argues that while the neurodiversity movement has empowered many people with autism, it favours the high-functioning and overlooks those who struggle with severe autism.

Julian Barnes reviews a book on Monet, but what he has to say about corruption in the world of art criticism is the real eyeopener.

"Egged on by manager Stephen Woolley (who would go on to produce British films such as Mona Lisa and Scandal), its programming exuded arthouse cool, the wired, insurgent energy of post-punk music, and the filthiness of American grindhouse." Sukhdev Sandhu watches a documentary about the Scala cinema, which flourished in King's Cross between 1978 and 1993.

Proof there are big cats living in the English countryside?

From Gloucestershire Live:

DNA from a black hair caught on a barbwire fence in Gloucestershire following a sheep attack has been offered as 'definitive proof' big cats are roaming the British countryside. The single strand was sent off for testing after being recovered from a farm where there had been some "unusual predatory" activity.

Suspicion was raised when video footage of a large black animal was also captured only a few miles away from where the sample was taken. And documentary-makers, who had been investigating sightings across the UK, say the test has now come back 'positive' and confirmed the existence of black panthers and other big cats living in the UK.

A forensic laboratory took on the species identification task and used mitochondrial DNA analysis to ascertain a 99 per cent match to a big cat species.

The same website has a piece by Rick Minter, who runs the Big Cat Conversations podcast:

Many landowners and farmers seem tolerant ... perhaps because the cats seem to prefer deer to sheep as their main large prey. "We have big cats - and have to learn to live with them" said a Gloucestershire farmer at one of my talks. 

On the next door farm, two people had separately reported a tan coloured puma drinking from a water trough. I asked the farm family if I could tether a camera trap there - the chance to film at strategic points on a large cat’s route should not be missed. Reluctantly, permission was declined.

The farm buildings were only a field away, and hosted a sensitive business with regular visitors. Like so many properties, these people felt that gossip on big cats was best avoided.

You can here the Liberal Democrat peer Paul Tyler interviewed on the Big Cat Conversations episode on Bodmin and Exmoor Beasts - the inside stories.

Lord Bonkers 30 years ago: Reflections on the general election

It's time again to see what Rutland's most celebrated fictional peer was saying 30 years ago.

I did start this feature a while ago but, what with one thing and another, it was not possible to continue it.

Here, however, is an extract from Lord Bonkers' Diary in the May 1992 issue of Liberator (no. 204).

As we join the old boy, he is reflecting on the result of the recent general election.

Saturday

Perusal of the morning's newspapers brings a little cheer. Painful as our losses were, we can take in pride in some results Mr Paul Tyler, who was a Member with me in 1906, has finally contrived to regain a seat, the Reverend Hughes has been returned in triumph, Dame Vera Lynn has held Rochdale - how appropriate that she should follow dear Grace Fields in sitting for that happy town! - and those of us who, in recent months, have intimated that we thought Father Alton to be a few Shuttleworths short of a committee room clearly owe him an apology.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Paul Tyler and the Beast of Bodmin

The Liberal Democrat MP Paul Tyler is interviewed in the latest edition of the podcast Big Cat Conversations.

He talks about his role in the mid 1990s, when he was MP for North Cornwall and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food commissioned an investigation of the possibility that large exotic cats were killing livestock on Bodmin Moor.

In those days Lord Bonkers was dropping heavy hints that Paul was himself the Beast of Bodmin, changing shape at night to lope across the empty moor. At my legal advisers' urging, let me say I am sure this was not the case.

Meanwhile in Gloucestershire...

Well I know one’s been sited in Rendcomb! Almost 90 per cent of residents believe big cats are living and breeding in #Gloucestershire 🐆 https://t.co/Bn1hANGHWb

— Cllr Paul Hodgkinson 🔶 (@paulcotswolds) August 17, 2020

Six of the Best 799

"Are they hiding something, or is it simply that they are so confused and divided by the outcome of the referendum that they daren’t doubt its legality?" Paul Tyler asks why Labour is silent on the possibility that Russia interfered with the 2016 EU referendum.

Judges in Canada are sentencing youth offenders to chess with promising results, report Monique Sedgwick, Jeffrey MacCormack and Lance Grigg. Chess joke: After 37 consecutive Berlins they break down in tears and promise to go straight.

Talking of Chess, Sarah Hurst looks at the Kremlin's plans to maintain control of world chess.

Ian Visits on the revival of London's pedways.

"The character of Dido was the embodiment of many of that small girl’s dreams, as, when Joan grew up to be a writer she was able to give her all the wonderful adventures she had imagined for herself, and encourage others to be bold and follow their dreams as well." Her daughter Lizza Aiken celebrates Joan Aiken's heroine Dido Twite.

Paul Steele takes us on a walk through some of this blog's sacred places, including White Grit and the Stiperstones Inn.

First the Tories closed the coal mines: now they are closing the coal mining museums

Lord Bonkers once described Cornwall as being littered with the gaunt remains of the tin mining heritage industry. (If I recall rightly, he was in those parts because he feared Paul Tyler was turning into the Beast of Bodmin every full moon.)

Now it seems North West Leicestershire will soon look much the same. The legal challenge to the closure of the Snibston Discovery Museum near Coalville failed today and it will be gone before the end of the month.

This is a horribly difficult time for local government, but it is hard to resist the feeling that the Conservative-controlled county council would have made more effort to save Snibston if it had been devoted to fox hunting or agriculture.

A Lib Dem stocking filler: Who Decides? by Paul Tyler

Who Decides?
Paul Tyler
Arthur H. Stockwell Ltd, 2014, £5.95

This slim volume would be a welcome addition to any Liberal Democrat's Christmas stocking. Now a Liberal Democrat peer, he was Liberal MP for Bodmin between the February and October elections of 1974, and then Liberal Democrat MP for North Cornwall between 1992 and 2005.

It is both Paul Tyler's memoirs and a practical guide to how committees work - and how to get them to do what you want.

The insights of the psychologist Edgar Anstey provides the scaffolding for the book, and it is illustrated by Thelwell cartoons. There is also a female nude sketched by Peter Shepheard during a meeting of the Royal Institute of British Architects (though probably not from the life).

Two episodes from Paul's political career will be of particular interest to his Liberal Democrat readers.

The first is the story of the count at Bodmin in the February 1974 general election:

At about 8 p.m. on Friday 1 March 1974 I was elected MP for the Bodmin constituency by a majority of just nine votes. 

The count had taken more than twelve hours, with six recounts, and we were locked into the public rooms at Liskeard with very little idea of what was happening in Westminster. Long before mobile phones we were dependent on the limited news brought in by friendly police officers alongside a supply of pasties. 

My mother (aged seventy-two) had engaged obstreperous young Conservatives with fisticuffs, our daughter (aged nineteen months) was entertaining the supporters at the Liberal Club and it was threatening to snow.

The second concerns the Beaconsfield by-election of 1982, where Paul finished second to the Conservatives' Tim Smith.

But who came third? Paul writes of the Labour selection process:

There were only four applications. The Labour leader of the neighbouring council of Slough, John Hurley, apparently performed badly at the only meeting at which the four were questioned. 

Anthony Blair, smart London lawyer, long-haired and debonair, was later dubbed "Deb's Delight" in Gerrards Cross, but after his selection was announced the South Bucks Observer reported it under the headline "Benn-backing barrister is Labour's choice". 

His appeal consisted of a loyal reiteration of Michael Foot's then current policy stance: exit from Europe, ban the bomb and doubts over the military adventure to recapture the Falklands.

Paul Tyler on the February 1974 general election

Last night's Today in Parliament ended with an item looking back to the general election of February 1974. Paul Tyler talked about his own experiences at Bodmin (where he won by 9 votes after six recounts) and Liberal MPs' attitude towards the hung parliament that resulted.

Interestingly, he said that Conservative MPs were far more interested in some sort of deal to keep Edward Heath in power than the Liberals were. Those who believe Jeremy Thorpe was desperate for high office have misunderstood him.

You have another six days to listen to this programme. The item on February 1974 starts at around 23:50.

Six of the Best 197

Lynne Featherstone remembers Sir Simon Milton.

Paul Tyler has argued that pressure groups should be subject to scrutiny too. Eaten by Missionaries agrees with him.

"I just received this email about a school in Devon undergoing building works: 'Our two boys attend a grammar school in Devon ... where they were told in assembly that with the construction of a new block they were not to speak to any builder, and that no builder must speak to them or he will face dismissal. How can we possibly hope to build any kind of better (or 'big') society with such an frightening lack of trust, not to mention courtesy? The school's instructions sound like something out of a 1950s sci-fi nightmare.'" A depressing tale from Josie Appleton's blog for the Manifesto Club.

journalism.co.uk reports the latest appearance of Alan Rusbridger, Ian Hislop and other editors before Westminster's joint committee on privacy and injunctions.

Did you know that a Spanish Republican merchant ship was was fired on and sunk by a Francoist gunboat off the Norfolk coast near Cromer? Hayes Peoples History has the story: "After landing at Cromer, the crew made their way to Lowestoft and then on the East Anglia express to Liverpool Street, London. On reaching their destination huge cheering crowds gathered to welcome them and show support for the Republican cause."

Did you know that Alan Garner's Elidor was first written as a radio play? Roger Howe on the Diversity Website has the story.

Strictly Come Dancing: Paul Tyler puts down Lords questions

Is Paul Tyler trying to be the Bob Russell of the upper house? News comes that the Lib Dem peer has put down Lords questions on the final of Strictly Come Dancing.

The Guardian reports that Ricky Whittle (who turns out to be the losing finalist and an actor in Hollyoaks) has called for the voting figures in the programme's final to be released. The report continues:

The actor was backed by Liberal Democrat peer Lord Tyler, who has tabled parliamentary questions on the subject, and said: "It's completely ludicrous to claim that the Corporation shouldn't make clear how well each couple did in the Strictly final.

"The technology is there, so why the smoke and mirrors?

"Surely if you ask the public to ring in, it's in the public's interest to know the full result."

Tyler has also called for the Freedom of Information Act to be update to expose the BBC to full public scrutiny.