The Victory Flight Of The Gallywasp

After an astonishingly successful week for the Tree Faction - following the Great Hot Pie Disaster and the ensuing panic buying which has depleted remaining pie stocks - the Redistributionists (under the tender maternal care of their Dearly Loved Leader Edweird the Milliner) have also come to enjoy the savoury taste of defeat and disappointment in the beautiful Viking-dominated Northumbrian settlement of Bradeford.

A local election had recently been called in that Elysian paradise, and the outcome had already been predicted by the knowledgeable and discerning soothsayers to be an enormous victory for the Redistributionists; this was a time-honoured tradition, and so the politicos - sure of the immutable resolve of their electorate to return yet another of their kind to the Witangemot - didn't stir their battle-weary backsides from their Yorvik headquarters to to render any needful assistance.

Their complacency was duly rewarded by a crushing defeat of the Redistributionist candidate by a seasoned political operator named Gyrth the Gallywasp - an apostate outcast from their holy faith, who has redefined his own addle-headed brand of Redistributionism by forming the Contempt Faction - a ragbag of  deluded and the criminally insane and disillusioned ex-members of the Redistributionist Worker's Faction. Gallywasp - a suave Caledonian confidence trickster and jailbird of considerable experience - owes his considerable victory to his silver-tongued oratorical skills, which (this Cat believes) were passed on to His Holiness Bugrake O'Barmy, the Supreme Chieftain of the clans of that as yet undiscovered land of plenty, Ultima Thule.

The reason for his success may also be attributed to his deliberate pandering to the Viking majority in Bradeford. In a rousing speech, Gallywasp pushed all the right buttons and made all the right rhetorical noises to tickle the ears and charm the normally Redistributionist-leaning Nordics to his cause. He swore a solemn oath that the Holy Eddas would become the basis for all of his policy decisions, and wouldn't rest from his labours until the sacred faith of Valhalla was established in this greedy, unpleasant land. After several days of this sort of pummeling, the cast-iron resolve of the Vikings shattered, and when they cast their voting sticks, they all - to a man - dropped them into the Contempt bin.

Gallywasp - a man of elusive, ever-shifting principles and few virtues - will represent his people well. Until he takes flight to assume his seat in the Witangemot, that is..