Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel

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Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel was the name of one of the candidates standing in a United Kingdom parliamentary by-election held in 1981.

On 1 October 1981, the Conservative Member of Parliament for the Crosby constituency, Sir Graham Page, died. A by-election was called, to be held in the following month, on 26 November. Nine candidates stood, including John Desmond Lewis, a 22-year-old student from Hayes in Middlesex. Lewis, President of the Cambridge University Raving Loony Society, decided to change his name to the outrageous moniker of the "Silly Party" candidate who had appeared in a sketch ("Election Night Special") in the popular BBC television comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus.

When the results were declared, Lewis – referred to by the Returning Officer as "Mr Tarquin Biscuit-Barrel" – had come fifth, with 223 votes. He finished ahead of four other candidates, including John Kennedy, a student who had been suspended from Middlesex Polytechnic after a sit-in over demands for a college nursery. Kennedy had tried to stop Lewis from standing by mounting a legal challenge to his candidacy. He finished with 31 votes, tying for last place with Donald Potter, the "Humanitarian Candidate" and founder of a "lonely hearts" club.

Former Labour MP Shirley Williams won the by-election for the newly-formed SDP-Liberal Alliance with 28,118 votes (49 percent of the vote), overturning a previous Conservative majority of 19,272. [1].

[edit] References

• Chapman et al, Monty Python's Flying Circus: Just the Words  Volume 1, London: Mandarin Paperbacks, 1990 (ISBN 0-7493-0226-7).