Happy New Year! 

If you think I'm being a little on the drag, it's because I still struggle with this new-fangled Gregorian calendar. Under its Julian predecessor, the big day arrives this coming Saturday. 

Anyway, onto ghoulish business. 

Trust me. There's only room in Hadleigh for one martyr. 

And that's me. 

RTG being martyred

Yet there would now appears, for the first time in centuries, some competition on the horizon. 

By intent or ignorance, prospectively-disgraced Hadleigh Town Councillor  Rolf 'Astroturf' Beggerow seems to be heading for the political pyre. 

Having been sanctioned by a very important public sector lawyer (aka the Monitoring Officer) for a complete failure to act on a blatant conflict of interest regarding the Layham Road sports ground, he now faces another drubbing for having completely failed to comply with the brief's, er, brief. 

He's already been cut adrift by the chairman of the football club and aside from the rather limp-wristed testudo formed by the town clerk, Wendy 'Pirate Queen' Brame and a few male councillors, he appears friendless and luckless. 

As and when Astroturf is kebabbed, he will join a pantheon of previous Hadleigh  councillors who have blithely assumed that standards are for the plebs. Roll over Brian 'Chernobyl' Riley, Astroturf's parked his reputation on your (not completely accurately measured) lawn. 

Other sitting tribunes of the people who might be slung onto the hob of eternal hopelessness include two existing Conservative district councillors and one possible candidate for the Babergh elections, due in May. 

However, chatter has it that the local association of blue boys and girls are not entirely sure about Queenie Dawson re-standing. 

Her record is unremarkable, save for a series of Nadine Dorries-esque pratfalls. None was more prattish that when she, in a state of moral agitation, complained recently about an article comprising your humble ghost's greatest hits of the last 12 months ('Now that's What I Call Satire 2022')  which she sent to all other Babergh councillors. 

Father Derek tells me we've picked up quite a few more loyal viewers as a result. Thanks, yer maj. 

Perhaps, Queenie might do a Kathryn 'Grandone' Grandon and opt to run as an Independent. Ipso facto, uh Grandone?  

In what should be headlined as 'The Return of the non-Native', I see that my old scalp, sorry, chum, Alan 'Bolter' Ferguson is set to tilt at the electoral windmill during the month of darling buds. 

Twice-defeated Bolter – beaten in 2019 by an electorate outside of Hadleigh and again two years later by Father Derek's pre- legal action before his name had even appeared on the ballot paper, must be hoping that his trinity of elections is of the blessed not the entirely blasted variety. 

Tories Dawson and Fergurson

I was only thinking of Bolter recently, when reading in full Jeremy Bowen mode, Father Derek's account of the impressive Anna Bye's testimony. 

Ms Bye, an anti-hunt saboteur had filmed some of Foxy Buckle's outriders 'bolting' a fox. 

Never heard of the term before. Apparently, this involves capturing foxes ahead of a hunt and either releasing them ahead of a meet or putting them in holes a day before, then digging them out as the hunt is about to start. 

Any resemblance to what the Tories might be planning for Bolter Ferguson are, I'm sure, entirely coincidental. 

Which leaves us with Mick 'MacAdam' Fraser. But rumour has it that having been Bolter's lastminute replacement in 2021 for the county council contests, he's seriously thinking of chucking it in this time around. 

So, matters aren't looking too good for the blue team. Talking of that colour, or more accurately, the boys in blue, I understand the coppers' investigation into the Essex & Suffolk Hunt's bolting practices is ongoing.