THE early-hours Frodsham High Street fracas in which Mike Amesbury suspended ex-Labour MP for Runcorn and Helsby decked a member of the public had a watery background. Capt Brocklebank hears the dispute centred on Mr Amesbury’s aim to halt the planned 33-day closure of Sutton Weaver Swing Bridge (badly needing TLC) and therefore that of the A56 over the Weaver Navigation and River Weaver. Mr Amesbury had told the Canal & Rivers Trust and Cheshire Councils this was economically unacceptable, and they should ‘go back to the drawing board’. However, the fall-out from this very parochial matter became national news and even featured on BBC TV’s satirical quiz Have I Got News For You. Certainly, it was an unusual place for an MP to hold his surgery, but whether his constituent needed surgery of a different kind is unclear.

Mr Amesbury admitted assault in court on 16 January, 2025 and sentenced to 10 weeks in prison, suspended for two years on appeal on 27 February 2025.