H'Angus the Monkey has been elected mayor of Hartlepool despite being a cartoon monkey mascot for the local football team.  H'Angus the monkey beat off opposition from the main political parties to land the £53,000-a-year job as local talisman.  The mascot's vote-winning slogan was "free bananas for schoolchildren".

Despite the embarrassment Downing Street appeared to be philosophical over the whole monkey business, insisting that elected mayors were "the way forward".  A spokesman said: "It is only to be expected that new faces come to the fore."

After the victory, H'Angus stressed other education policies and youth issues would take precedence over the "free bananas" pledge, but such serious talk from the monkey failed to put off a newspaper journalist dressed as a gorilla, who chased the new mayor as he posed for photographs at the town's quay.  He declined the reporter's offer of a banana and walked away.

Hartlepool's residents are famously said to have hanged a monkey during the Napoleonic wars because they thought it was a French spy.