Lord Biro Has Left the Building

Lord Biro left the building on 4 December 2022. He was a Nottingham legend, campaigning on everything from free neutering of cats and Boris Johnson to impeaching Tony Blair for war crimes. The above video is a celebration of his life via artefacts found in the Ray Gosling Archives and from his website.

For years, I would bump into Lord Biro in Forest Fields, out on the campaign trail. He would have massive Elvis ‘Las Vegas’ glasses on, greet you with an ‘uh huh,’ and be armed with a plaggy bag full of flyers he’d had photocopied down the nearest community centre.

On the surface, his campaigns seemed a bit puerile – a poem in rhyming couplets and a drawing that looked like it had been knocked out in a few seconds. But beneath the puns and euphemisms he was fighting serious social issues – both local and global – many of which were in collaboration with Ray Gosling.

In May 1963, Ray Gosling stood as an Independent Liberal in the Lenton Ward, inviting people to ‘Vote for a Madman. For just once in your life. Vote for a madman’. He got 475 votes and it would pave the way forward for people such as Screaming Lord Sutch. However, a criminal record would later prohibit Gosling from standing again which is the point at which Biro stepped in. Together they formed the ‘Bus Pass Elvis Party’.

As a member of the ‘Bus Pass Elvis Party,’ Biro and Gosling fought the cause of the elderly. Gosling did this on TV via his Inside Out documentaries addressing issues such as poverty and loneliness. He also paid the £500 retainer required to stand for election, knowing full well that Biro was unlikely to obtain the specified proportion of votes that would guarantee the refund.

Biro stood in various elections up and down the country. In 1997 he went up against Neil Hamilton in the Conservative stronghold of Tatton. Hamilton was at the centre of a ‘cash for questions’ row which would eventually see him lose his seat to Martin Bell, who was running as an independent MP. If you want to read more about this, see John Sweeney’s excellent book Purple Homicide: Fear and Loathing on Knutsford Heath.

In 2014 he reaped a success of sorts in Nottingham City Council when he received 67 votes, beating the liberal democrat candidate, Tony Marshall, who managed a measly 56 votes. Biro campaigned for a 30 percent discount in brothels for OAPs, later it would be free condoms for OAPs. But beneath the silliness was a serious question: What were the council doing to provide for the elderly. This would see him campaigning against the lack of public toilets, and the right to use your bus pass at any time.

One social issue he was particularly vocal about was the Bedroom Tax. This was a provision of the British Welfare Reform Act 2012 whereby tenants living is social housing could lose benefits for having a spare room. The policy was intended to evict people from their homes – no matter how long they had lived there. The implication being they should be grateful for whatever they were given. Biro was ‘all shook up’. It’s one of the few times I witnessed his humour give way to anger.

In 2014, when I began putting together Dawn of the Unread – a series of online comics celebrating Nottingham’s literary history, I wanted to include a nod to Biro’s campaigning and so included his flyer ‘Elvis Wouldn’t be Seen Dead in Tesco’ on a pub wall in Issue 12. Again, this campaign was raising a really important point about the homogeneity of city centre planning or as the Militant Elvis Anti-Tesco Popular Front (one of the numerous names his party went under) put it, our aim is to ‘overthrow the Corporate Capitalist State which turned Elvis, a man of immense talent, into a fat media joke’.

We tried to interview him for LeftLion numerous times, but he wasn’t interested in discussing his upbringing or his working life as a painter and decorator. He just wanted to do the fun stuff. In 2010 we worked together at the British Art Show at the Nottingham Contemporary where he read some pithy poems slagging off art establishment celebrities. One of these was Damien Hirst, who in 2007 spent £12 million sticking 8,601 diamonds onto a skull he called For the Love of God. Appalled by this vulgarity, we nipped into Toys R Us, bought a medical skull toy, and covered it in jelly tots. Unfortunately, nobody bought it.

Dave Bishop ‘left the building’ on 4 December at the age of 78.

The above article was originally published on LeftLion. I chose the title Return to Sender for this as it is the greatest headline never published. It was the original headline for Elvis’s death in The Sun (I think) but was pulled at the last minute out of respect. 

For more information on Lord Biro see grumpyoldelvis.co.uk

Podcast: Mansfield is a Town in North Nottinghamshire

Arriving at Cologne

Arriving at Cologne. Photo: Iryna Kushnir 

In April, I took a group of students to Europe on an enquiry-based learning challenge exploring two themes: Levelling up and Graduate Retention. My role was as their academic mentor which meant two things: Making sure they didn’t miss trains and ensuring they produced a list of suggestions which they would pitch on their return to the Mayor of Mansfield, Andy Abrahams, and Ashfield Independent, Councillor Matthew Relf. They were seeking advice on how to invest in their communities after receiving funding as part of the governments levelling up agenda.

In 2021, the government ranked areas from 1-3 using three categories: the most need for economic recovery and growth, the need for improved transport and connectivity, and the need for regeneration. Mansfield was ranked as the highest priority for support.

101 towns were offered funding as part of the government’s Town Fund proposals. Of this, Mansfield was awarded the lowest at £12.3 million whereas Ashfield received the highest with £62.6 million. Therefore, our trip was an opportunity to have a say in how some of that money might be spent.

My area of expertise is the creative industries and so I was interested in how the arts may help regenerate cities. I was accompanied by Iryna Kushnir who specialises in educational policy and whose focus was graduate retention. Iryna is originally from Ukraine. Just before we were about to head off, Russia invaded her home country.

Our route was created in collaboration with the students with the aim of visiting post-industrial cities who may face similar economic issues as Mansfield and Ashfield. However, we stuck to Northern Europe in anticipation of a refugee exodus into Central Europe. Our route was: Lille, Lens, Cologne, Arnhem, Utrecht, Rotterdam with a quick stop off in Brussels for a Belgium waffle.

In Cologne we visited a cooperative who supported each other through a skill share scheme and whose non-hierarchical structure was similar in principle to the Sumac Centre in Nottingham. From the visit, the students developed a Cycle Cinema idea whereby you could peddle out to remote areas and beam films onto derelict buildings. This had numerous benefits: It kept people fit, was carbon neutral, and helped bring culture to people who may not be able to leave home due to health (elderly) or due to costs (unemployed, refugees).

We visited Utrecht to hear about plans for ‘vertical forests’. Architect and urban planner, Stefano Boeri, has created innovative designs to bring some greenery back to concrete jungles. This is not only visually appealing but helps improve air quality. In the evenings, Utrecht transforms into a ‘Lumen Walk’ whereby buildings are lit up to highlight important historical places or hidden art works. The students loved this and argued that if it could be replicated back home it would create a sense of pride and may encourage repeat visits to the town centre.

In Rotterdam we visited Piet Blom’s ‘Cube Houses’ which are quirky designed homes that optimise space. These are next to Markthal, a sustainable building offering an alternative to the traditional market square, providing homes, office space, and a vibrant indoor market. This clustering of amenities mean you head straight to the market for lunch after visiting the Cube homes. They loved this and said if student accommodation or starter flats looked this impressive, they would have more pride in where they live and be more likely to invite people to visit.

Arnhem also provided lots of inspiration and ideas. At one point, this had lots of problems with anti-social behaviour and so required a radical rethink. One innovation was to create homes above shops so that artisans lived together and built community rather than leaving at 5pm. One immediate impact was they got to know the people causing the anti-social behaviour. They provided support, such as a fashion designer repairing clothes for homeless people and another who sowed stories and quotes from refugees into her clothing to visualise and validate their lives. Crime dropped, people talked to each other, and the area has now become a thriving fashion district.

On our return to the UK, I was contacted by Robert Shore, who had previously commissioned me to produce a programme about Alan Sillitoe for BBC Radio 3 series The Essay. Robert is originally from Mansfield but left for London many years ago to become creative director at Elephant and as deputy editor of Art Review magazine. He had recently started a podcast called Mansfield Is A Town In North Nottinghamshire about the past, present and possible futures of Mansfield and wondered if I had anything I might like to contribute. ‘Funny you should say that,’ I said…

You can listen to the podcast here which I co presented with two of the students from the trip, Tiffany Mayfield and Yianni Chrisodoulou.

Episode 8: Regreening Mansfield

The European Future Towns Challenge was funded by the Erasmus Scheme and organised by NTU Global.