Howling Laud Hope

Alan "Howling Laud" Hope (born June 1942, Mytchett, Surrey) is the Leader of the United Kingdom's Official Monster Raving Loony Party (OMRLP). On the death in 1999 of the party's founder Screaming Lord Sutch, Hope and his pet cat, Catmando, were jointly elected as leaders of the OMRLP. Since June 2002, Hope has been the party's sole leader following Catmando's death in a road traffic accident.

Howling Laud Hope was the first-ever OMRLP candidate to be elected to public office, when he was elected unopposed to a seat on Ashburton Town Council in Devon in 1987. He subsequently became the Mayor of Ashburton in 1998. In 2010, Hope was elected unopposed to Fleet Town Council in Hampshire.

Howling Laud Hope was the OMRLP candidate in the Clacton by-election on 9 October 2014 where he came 7th with 127 votes.

Background

Howling Laud Hope was known as Kerry Rapid when he was a back-up singer for rock and roll performer Screaming Lord Sutch in the 1960s. As Leader of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, Sutch made Hope the party's Deputy Chairman in 1982. Hope subsequently became the party's Chairman and Deputy Leader, before becoming Leader following Sutch's death in 1999.

As an OMRLP candidate, Hope was elected unopposed to Ashburton Town Council in Devon in 1987. This caused a dilemma in the party as it had previously been decided that any member who was elected to a public office should be expelled from the party. This rule was changed at the 1987 Party Conference to allow Hope to remain a member and official representative of the party. He later rose to become Deputy Mayor, before being made Mayor of Ashburton in 1998. Contrary to a 2001 broadsheet newspaper election report, Hope is not the only OMRLP candidate to have been elected to public office.{{#tag:ref|In 1993, when the British National Party gained its first local councillor, Derek Beackon, Screaming Lord Sutch pointed out that the Official Monster Raving Loony Party already had six.

Party headquarters

Hope's pub and guesthouse in Ashburton, "The Golden Lion", was the OMRLP's Party Headquarters and conference centre from 1984 until 2000, after which he sold the property and moved to Hampshire. There he took over the Dog and Partridge public house at Yateley until 2011 which served as the new party headquarters.

Upon Sutch's death in 1999, Hope and his cat Catmando were elected as joint leaders of the OMRPL. Catmando served until his death as a result of a traffic accident in July 2002, when Hope became the sole leader of the party.

OMRLP Candidate

Hope stood as a candidate in the following elections:

• Aldershot in the 2001 general election: he came last out of seven with 390 votes, narrowly behind Arthur Uther Pendragon.
• Brent East by-election, 2003, where he came 13th of 16 candidates with 59 votes in a contest won by the Liberal Democrat candidate Sarah Teather.
• Hartlepool by-election, 2004 polling 12th out of 14 candidates with 80 votes
• Aldershot in the 2005 general election, where he took sixth, last place with 553 votes.
• Blaenau Gwent by-election, 2006, where he took sixth, last place with 318 votes
• Sedgefield by-election, 2007 where he came tenth of 11 candidates with 129 votes.
• Norwich North by-election, 2009, Hope came ninth of 12 candidates with 144 votes.
• United Kingdom general election, 2010, Hope contested Witney in Oxfordshire against incumbent MP, Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, and came sixth of ten candidates with 234 votes. Cameron held the seat with an increased majority of 22,740 and following coalition talks became Prime Minister.
• Town council election in Fleet, Hampshire in May 2010, and was elected to one of its quota of seats unopposed.
• In March 2011, he stood in the Barnsley Central by-election and won 198 votes — eighth out of the nine candidates.
• In May 2011, he stood in the Leicester South by-election and won 553 votes — last out of five candidates with 1.6% of the vote.

By-elections

Two 2012 by-elections to elect MPs have been selected by Hope but resulted in the least votes for the party leader (the previous leader was Screaming Lord Sutch who died 1999) other than three of Screaming Lord Sutch's 41 attempts all in the 1980s and Hope's attempts Brent East in 2003 and Hartlepool in 2004: in March 2012 he stood in the Bradford West by-election winning 111 votes — placed last of eight candidates. In November 2012 Hope ran for MP in Manchester Central in its by-election triggered unusually by its MP, Tony Lloyd running for Police and Crime Commissioner and polled, on a very low turnout of 18.2%, tenth out of 12 candidates, with 78 votes, achieving just over a quarter of the vote achieved by the Pirate Party and less than an eighth of the vote of any of the top five candidates, who were members of the largest parties in the UK.

In the South Shields by-election of 2013, Hope came eighth out of nine candidates with 197 votes, which was notably only 155 votes behind the Liberal Democrats' candidate.

Top Gear

In 2003 Hope appeared on Top Gear during the second episode of series 2, in its feature/challenge searching for 'Britain's fastest Political Party' — he came last.

References

Notes

References

Further reading

• Monster Raving Loony Party race heating up between chairman – and his cat Reuters. Retrieved 23 September 1999.
• Loony tradition continues at by-election BBC News Retrieved 1 July 1999.

External links

• Howling Laud Hope biographical videos
• Official Monster Raving Loony Party - Official website