You might not recognise Steve Bray’s face but you’ll know his voice.
He’s that irritating bloke who disrupts TV news broadcasts outside Parliament by bellowing: “Stop Brexit.”
Then again Bray is hard to miss in his yellow star-spangled trews, blue felt top hat, Union Jack cape.
And carrying a steel megaphone half as big as himself.
He’s a bloody nuisance, frankly, yelping and...ahem...braying day night beneath my House of Commons office window.
He obviously annoyed Jo Swinson, too, because her wizard way to shut him up was to dispatch him 165 miles to Wales to become her Lib Dem candidate in Cynon Valley.
Bray would make a colourful MP, but he won’t be one.
Cynon Valley has a Labour majority of 13,200 and in 2017 Lib Dems came last behind Tories, Plaid Cymru and Ukip polling just 585 votes.
But this is the first time in 26 months I’ve been able to write this column in peace.
I won’t be voting for you, Jo, but thanks a bundle. Owe you one.
The Lib Dem leader won’t lose sleep over my lost vote as there are millions more up for grabs.
Both Tories and Labour are busy selecting headbanger candidates with the two main parties swinging alarmingly towards the extremes of the political pendulum.
Which leaves the silent majority of moderate voters with nowhere to go but Jo’s Remain Alliance.
Brexit comes on top of changes in the electorate already taking place.
Nearly nine out of ten voters now identify as Leave or Remain while only two thirds give allegiance to a particular party.
And of those class and age no longer define voting intention.
In 2017 ABC1 voters split evenly between Labour and Tory compared to the 1970s when they were three times more likely to be Conservatives.
In 2000 a 70 year old was as likely to vote Labour as a 30 year old.
At the last election 30 year olds were twice as likely as septuagenarians to do so.
That’s why this election is so hard to call.
Even moderate Leavers may not like the look of either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn and see Jo as least worst choice.
When Labour publishes its manifesto this week I’m sure Corbyn’s very British socialist revolution will have mass appeal.
Yet that may not be enough to carry him over the line. Another hung Parliament beckons.
There’s one seat I hope does go Lib Dem. My message to the good folk of Cynon Valley is to turn out for Steve Bray.
So from now on Jo and I will hear only the sound of silence.
Taking the heat out of global warming
I used to be a climate change sceptic, but as our weather got weirder I changed with the climate.
Now I’m fully signed up to the green agenda.
But I question the 2050 zero emissions target because it’s unclear quite how we’ll get there.
Extinction Rebellion can superglue themselves to pavements, but that won’t stop droughts or drenchings.
And I do wish Greta Thunberg would stop hectoring and go back to her Stockholm school to knuckle down to her studies.
That’s because school is where finding the answers should begin.
Italy’s education minister Lorenzo Fioramonti is to introduce 33 hours a year of compulsory lessons in climate change.
So should we.
It would take the heat and hysteria out of global warming because young minds will absorb the issues soberly, sensibly and dispassionately.
Training the next generation in the causes of the problem is the surefire route to finding the bright sparks of the future who will solve it.
It's no change if it's all change
How much would it cost if you left your job? Or started a new one? Or moved from one office to another?
Few thousand quid tops perhaps?
That’s what I thought until I saw the eye-watering bill the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is putting in for this election.
IPSA is the watchdog which holds the purse strings for MPs and staff.
And it says “to undertake unplanned work to support new, departing and returning MPs in setting up and winding up their offices” will cost...wait for it...a cool £30million.
As IPSA also considers complaints against MPs I raised one of my own on behalf of us taxpayers.
The dosh is in case every MP changes on December 12 which means redundo for them and their staff while sorting out all the newbies.
“We have to prepare for the worst,” IPSA explained. “We’re not actually going to spend all that.”
Too much momentum
I’ve promised not to say where, but an outgoing Labour MP tells me at the selection for his replacement two candidates read out identical speeches handed them by Momentum.
Whoops.
This is just bananas, Stewie
Former Tory MP Stewart Jackson tried for a Commons comeback after Michael Fallon vacated Sevenoaks, Kent.
Jacko told activists at the selection: “Before Margaret Thatcher Britain was a windswept banana republic.”
Uh-huh, Stewie.
And this fruit was grown exactly where?
As local Tories didn’t want a bananas MP they chose someone else.
A day for men and Gents
I’ve been invited to New Delhi’s Taj Palace Hotel on Tuesday to celebrate World Toilet Day.
I stayed there with Gordon Brown when he was PM and it’s so swish I’d like to go back, but the General Election means I can’t.
World Toilet Day coincides with International Men’s Day which is appropriate.
Men tend to stay in the loo longer than women - because we do our best thinking there!
