Paul Farrelly,MP for Newcastle under Lyme, dropped in with his customary supply of sushi. We're both fans.
Paul helped me into Politics back in 1992-3 when I was seeking a borough council seat in Haringey as he was the Secretary of the Hornsey & Wood Green Labour branch. Little did I know then that he was also Stuart Barnes' scrum half at Teddy Hall and we had overlapped at Oxford. Anyway, I was duly allowed to stand as a candidate in Archway ward where we'd never had 2 Labour councillors (indeed Nicky Gavron had been the first and only councillor of the ward for Labour). I was told it was unwinnable and in 1994 I duly won it......
The same thing happened in 1995 when I was asked to stand for the hopeless Parliamentary seat of Sittingbourne and Sheppey. I won the nomination and then turned over a 16,600 Tory majority to win it in 1997 by 1929 votes!! Hey ho.
Anyway, Paul told me that I had been elected Life President of the House of Commons and House of Lords Rugby Group!