A party aide gave the thumbs up. Elvis was about to enter the building.
Around 200 Liberal Democrat faithful gathered in St Anne and All Saints Church Hall in south Lambeth to cheerfully greet their leader for a campaign event; including, we were told a significant announcement.
Then a slightly dishevelled gentleman ambled through the doorway and called for quiet, telling the liberal brethren: “I will fight for my rights, I will walk about this building, I will cry.”
After some coaxing the unexpected guest was gently helped on his way out of the doorway. A false start. Minutes later, Tiger Tim bounced through to hoots and whistles from the faithful, most of whom seemed to be carrying orange lozenges and eager to hear the gospel according to St Timothy.
The constituency was Vauxhall, the political home since a by-election in 1989 to Labour’s Kate Hoey, who only two years ago won a majority of 12,708 over the Tories. Indeed, the yellow peril slumped to a paltry fourth place in 2015. So why was Mr F campaigning here of all places? Simple.
Despite the fact that Ms Hoey was a high-profile Brexiter, the constituency voted by 75 per cent for Remain; one of the highest pro-EU votes in the land. In this Brexit election, the Lib Dems sense the first rumblings of a political earthquake.
Tim had a surprise for his congregation when he announced that as of Monday morning the party had notched up its 100,000th member. Cue whoops and cheers.
Basking in the afterglow of the success of France’s centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, the chief liberal said it was clear there was an appetite for change among the electorate and he even came up with his own “coalition of chaos” but it wasn’t made up of Labour and the Scottish Nationalists but the Tories, Labour and Ukip, all of which were backing the hardest of Brexits.
As usual the only negative element that was introduced to the cosy, self-congratulatory campaign event came courtesy of HM media. One reporter again asked Mr F if he thought gay sex was a sin.
Eyes not only rolled in Liberal Democrat heads but there was, unusually, a deal of barracking of HM media; polite barracking, of course. “Get over it!” shouted one orange lozenger. “Boring!” shouted another.
Tiger Tim insisted he was all for LGBT rights but that people also had a right to a “personal faith”. In other words, he wasn’t going to answer the question.
And with that and more happy lozenge-waving, the chief liberal disappeared through the door to follow the rumble and seek out another Remain-supporting constituency.
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