There is something about a British general election that brings out oddballs, loons and eccentrics who dream of making it to Parliament.
Before polling day on Thursday next week, Britain’s politicians are sharing podiums with quirky candidates poking fun at the whole election ritual.
In a campaign derided as flat and stage-managed, the new arrivals bring some much-needed entertainment to the proceedings.
Photo: AFP
The torchbearers for electoral eccentricity are in the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, which has been blowing raspberries at politics for decades.
Their leader, Alan “Howling Laud” Hope, dresses in a white suit and Stetson hat, with a giant rosette and a leopard-print bow tie.
The Loony “manicfesto” includes pledges to put air conditioning on the outside of buildings to deal with global warming and fit airbags to the stock exchange in preparation for the next crash.
Photo: AFP
Some of their policies have been enacted, such as passports for pets, 24-hour pubs and honors for The Beatles.
“Our main policy is: We promise we shall do all the things the other parties say they are going to do when they do not do it,” Hope told reporters at his pub in Fleet, southwest of London.
“We have seen it all before, heard it all before, and still do not believe it,” he said.
Hope is standing against London Mayor Boris Johnson in the west London seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, and hopes that voters will have trouble picking out the official Loony.
“General elections are good fun. When we turn up, they say: ‘Jolly good job you are here; at least it won’t be so boring,’” he said, sipping a pint of Loony Winning Co-ALE-ition beer.
“We are just poking a bit of sensible fun at politics,” said the 72-year-old, one of 16 Loonies standing.
“If we just got 2,000 or 3,000 votes, wouldn’t it make the other parties sit up and think, where on Earth are we going wrong?” he said. “That’s not loony, is it? Or is it?”
Meanwhile, in Aberavon in south Wales, Captain Beany — once voted the Great British Eccentric of the year — is out to cause a shock upset.
Local charity fundraiser Barry Kirk, 60, is a man-sized baked bean: the tinned haricot beans in tomato sauce beloved by Britons famed for inducing flatulence.
He has spent 25 years unsuccessfully standing for election in his Captain Beany superhero costume and nuclear-orange face paint.
This time, he has switched the caped crusader look for a tangerine-colored smart suit to strike a more serious tone.
He is standing against Stephen Kinnock — son of 1980s Labour leader Neil Kinnock and husband of Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt — who has been parachuted into the safe Labour seat.
“It is a slap in the face to all the local population,” Beany said.
“People say to me: ‘At least you are local, have done your bit for this town, why should we vote for this interloper?’” he said.
Beany and Kinnock have crossed paths out campaigning.
“What a bore. If you went into a furniture showroom, he is quite plausible for that. He is totally bland,” Beany said.
Beany reckons that his new look and serious approach to representing his struggling steel town is attracting more voters.
“Politicians promise the world and do not come up with the goods,” he said.
“I have got one policy: If you’ve got any issues, come to see me and I promise if I can do something for you, I’ll try my hardest to do it. Can you imagine an orange man on the backbenches? That would be awesome!” he said.
Elsewhere, some well-known, but rather unusual, candidates are hoping to shake up parliament.
Mark “Bez” Berry, the dancer-maracas shaker in the alternative rock band Happy Mondays, has formed the Reality Party, an anti-austerity, anti-fracking movement.
He is standing in Salford and Eccles in Manchester, northwest England, saying: “Shake your maracas if you’re against the frackers.”
Comedian Al Murray is standing in South Thanet, southeast England, against Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party.
Murray is running as his character, the Pub Landlord — a patriotic, xenophobic, reactionary publican.
“It seems to me that the UK is ready for a bloke waving a pint around, offering common sense solutions,” Murray said, the whole effort mocking Farage’s approach.
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