HUDDERSFIELD could provide the next leader of the Monster Raving Loony Party.

But the fur is sure to fly when the leadership battle gets under way at the party's conference in September.

Honley woman Boney Maroney, the party's deputy leader, is putting forward her stuffed cat, Claws 57, for the contest.

The leadership crisis has been triggered by the death of Catmandoo, a cat that shared the leadership of the party with his owner, Alan "Howling Laud" Hope, of Yate- ley, near Farnborough, Hampshire.

Boney, whose real name is Melodie Staniforth, said: "Unfortunately, Catmandoo got run over by a car and we are going to have to elect a new joint leader.

"The only rule is that it has to be a cat rather than a human."

Boney said: "I am putting forward my 50-year-old stuffed cat, Claws 57. Being stuffed, he could be party leader for ever."

Despite being his sponsor, Boney admitted that she knew little of the feline's background.

"He used to be on show in a museum of horrors in York and an exhibition depicting the London Blitz," she said. "We rescued him from the cellar of a clog museum."

With a fierce expression and his back permanently arched, Claws 57 lacks the looks and voter appeal normally required of a political animal.

Boney said: "I was brushing him outside the house one day when a woman passing by said she would report me to the RSPCA for neglect because he looked underfed and mangy!"