ELECTION fever is running high at Westminster and William Hague hasn't got a prayer... or has he? Labour are obviously nowhere near as confident as the opinion polls suggest.

How else do we explain this bizarre complaint of political bias by a Labour councillor with a distinct Darlington connection - Malcolm Kennedy, former hubby of town lass Jane Kennedy, MP for Liverpool Wavertree?

Mr Kennedy this week alleged that the voice-over for one of the key characters in the BBC's remake of children's favourite Bill and Ben The Flowerpot Men was a deliberate take-off of William Hague.

According to the Labour man, Slowcoach, the grouchy tortoise, spoke with the same Yorkshire lilt as the Tory leader and was therefore unfairly promoting the Conservative cause.

Yes, dear reader, like you, I can't quite see why it's so advantageous to portray Billy Hague as a slow-moving herbivorous reptile to people too young to vote.

Anyway, actor John Thompson - who plays Slowcoach - has denied he was doing the unmistakeable drawl of the MP for Richmond.

He admits he was trying to do a bit of a North Yorkshire accent as well as paying tribute to comic hero, the late Deryck Guyler, alias Korky the policeman in Eric Sykes's series, and caretaker Norman Potter in school-based sitcom Please Sir!

But now it's been suggested that Mr Thompson - star of ITV's Cold Feet and BBC's The Fast Show - is thinking of doing Hague professionally.

"Now I know I've got another string to my bow, I'm going to have a listen to old Haguey and capitalise on it, bring it up to scratch 'cos I do a few others," he said.

BOLD, dynamic and headline-grabbing - that's probably what Billy Hague thought he was doing by announcing he was supporting the new Son of Star Wars.

That's the ambitious new plan to shield the US from ballistic missile attack from rogue countries, using an upgraded Fylingdales early warning radar centre in North Yorkshire.

William's alleged mate, George W Bush, incoming US president and new leader of the Western world, is dead keen on the idea so Billy's probably just limbering up for that new "special relationship" when he comes to power. But this idea to make Fylingdales even more of a nuclear target is hardly a massive vote-winner in North Yorkshire, particularly in the Scarborough and Whitby seat.

Sitting Labour MP Lawrie Quinn must be chuckling at Mr Hague's boldness. But I bet Tory challenger John Sykes is hoping last night's speech was an imitation by John Thompson.

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