WE are going to cut taxes… we are going to increase jobs… we are going to raise pensions… we are going to reduce GP waiting times… we are going to tackle illegal immigration… we are going to employ more NHS nurses… we are going to speed up the economic recovery… we are going to freeze rail fares… we are going replace Shakespeare with The Beano at every state school.

Excuse Me!

As the election approaches its grand finale we are bombarded, on our TV screens, in our newspapers and through our letterboxes with myriad mouth-watering vows, promises and guarantees which will improve and possibly enrich our lives… all for the price of a scrawled cross on a ballot paper.

As an endless stream of pledges are thrust into our midst by politicians sporting their most earnest and sincere veneers, a touch of levity, a hint of humour, the merest smidgeon of satire, can be a welcome distraction.

Sadly, there isn’t a single lunatic – at least, not one who has officially declared him or herself as such – contending either of the Swindon Parliamentary seats next month, or any of those up for grabs at the borough council.

Around the country, I note with some interest and perhaps a little envy, a string of potential MPs and would-be local councillors have been hitting the campaign trail on behalf of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party.

Their numbers include commendable basket-cases such as Nicholas Robert Blunderbuss Green (Kenilworth and Southam) Sir Oink-a-Lot (Sharston, Manchester), Hairy Knorm (Faversham and Mid Kent) and Baron Von Magpie Bum (Islwyn, South Wales).

But no-one, alas, is flying such frivolous colours in Swindon.

So where is he, the one-time candidate for the aforementioned party as well as numerous off-shoots including the Raving Loony Green Giant Party, the Raving Loony Rock’n’Roll Party, the Raving Loony SDP (Silly Democratic Party), the Raving Loony Mad Hatters Tea Party, the Monster Raving Loony Party Party Party and the Raving Loony Green Giant Supercalifragilistic Anti-Poll Tax Party

Where is Roly Gillard when we need him?

He is making a cuppa in the kitchen at his terraced house in Old Town, as it happens. “C’mon Roly,” I venture when he emerges with the said brew, “why aren’t you out there banging the drum for Swindon lunatics everywhere?”

After manfully serving as our resident loony for more than 15 years, Roly, now 70, has long since consigned his silly hats, purple flares, spangled waste coats, over-sized nappy (more about that later) and faithful running partner Trigger the Hobby Horse to the wardrobe.

“I loved every minute of it,” he says. “It was an opportunity to stick a pin in the egos of some politicians.”

But Roly, who runs The Little Print Shop in Victoria Road, was de-railed by personal circumstances along with the notion that he had “done his bit for lunacy” in the town he loves.

But he’d love to see someone else give it a bash. “I’d be right behind anyone who’d like to do it here in Swindon… if there is anyone crazy enough, that is.”

Father-of-three Roly came to Swindon from London in 1973 and a few years later found himself in the vanguard of a posse of town centre dwellers campaigning for residents’ parking.

There is a photo of Roly in the Adver in May 1981 jumping off a wall in celebration after the battle was won.

But it is a big leap from the Swindon Campaign for Residents Parking (SCARP) to saddling up with the party founded by Screaming Lord Sutch (3rd Earl of Harrow) and becoming our lone Monster Raving Loony Party delegate.

It all began, predictably, with a laugh and a beer. His pal Noel Reilly, landlord of the Beehive pub, decided to stand as a Social Democrat in Eastcott during a local election in the late Eighties.

Just to annoy the infamously easy to rile publican, Roly stood against him on behalf of the Eastcott Loony Party.

“I won just enough votes to keep him out,” he grins, still tickled at the memory.

Bitten by the bug, Roly over the next decade and a half, right up until his swansong in 2002, ran as the Swindon candidate for assorted Raving Loony affiliated parties in two general elections and half-a-dozen or so council ones.

During this time well over a thousand Swindonians – if you add them all up – voted for Roly… perhaps in protest at the paucity of other candidates on offer, or maybe because they felt they could truly trust a man in a wedding cake hat and an over-sized nappy (more about that later).

“Everyone likes a nutter,” proclaims Roly cheerfully. “It seemed to strike a chord with the average person in the street. I have always shown politics the respect it deserves.”

Over the years Roly hit the streets and the hustings with Trigger, a peerless example of equine prowess concocted by his drinking pal Dave Jones with a broom handle, several cereal packets and some fake fur.

“A top hat is virtually compulsory along with some extremely silly outfits,” advises Roly to any up and coming Monster Raving Loony advocate who may be out there.

Roly’s battle cry while fighting a General Election was: “There are plenty of amateur loonies in Parliament. It’s time they moved over for the real thing.”

Representing the Raving Loonies also gave him the chance to make some salient, high profile political points, he insists.

For instance, when Thamesdown Council introduced parking charges at Coate Water in 1993 he donned Dick Turpin regalia and rode Trigger to the council offices with a banner proclaiming “highway robbery.”

Pointing an imaginary gun at the mayoral Roller, Roly declared at the time: “At least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask when he was robbing the public.”