Al Murray – future MP? Or scuppered by bureaucratic rules?
Politicians? Comedians?
Eddie Izzard seems to keep saying he may or may not stand as Mayor of London.
And Al Murray – brighter than most politicians – has said he is standing in the upcoming General Election.
But will he?
Lord Toby Jug, leader of the new Eccentric Party of Great Britain (a protégé of the late lamented Screaming Lord Sutch’s Monster Raving Loony Party) says:
Lord Toby Jug is on the look-out for floating voters
“Al Murray may end up crying in his beer. His Free United Kingdom Party (FUKP) has not yet been registered with the Electoral Commission nor approved. It takes 30 days and, if it sounds similar to other parties’ names, he will have to find another name.
“It took me four months to register my party; they deemed my previous names too similar to other parties. Al won’t be doing much canvassing in South Thanet either, as he’s on tour – and will be doing a gig in Dartford on election night. I personally think it’s a massive publicity stunt to promote his tour.”
Lord Toby Jug’s new Eccentric Party includes, as its Chairman and Minister For Inventions, Sir Dusty Wells-Fargo – otherwise known as mad inventor John Ward.
John Ward with some Malcolm Hardee Awards for Comedy
John designed the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards. and was previously Minister for Inventions in Screaming Lord Sutch’s Monster Raving Loony Party.
Already-announced policies of the new Eccentric Party include the nationalisation of public toilets, building taller buildings for higher education and getting dental charges capped. Their controversial immigration policies include putting giant photos of Russell Brand, Katie Hopkins and Jeremy Clarkson at airports to discourage people from settling in Britain.
An inaugural Eccentrics Party meeting was held two days ago at Party HQ – the Oliver Cromwell public house in St Ives, Cambridgeshire. I am told it was “packed to the rafters with prospective candidates and party members from all over the UK.” The new party’s policies were discussed.
I quote from the minutes of the meeting:
The very first members of the Eccentric Party & some seagulls
We will stop alcohol abuse in our cities and town centres by introducing an unhappy hour with one drink for the price of two to stop drunken yobs making them no-go-zone areas at weekends.
All swimming pools will be drained once a week for all non-swimmers.
We will make the British climate more temperate all year round by tapping into the natural resource of hot air around Westminster.
We will paint Britain’s sea limits so that British fish know where they are at all times.
15% off of phone bills for people who stutter.
The Eccentric Party’s literal launch on the River Great Ouse
TV Debates… All participants in the TV debates will be made to wear suits colour-coded to their party. David Cameron will be in a sober-looking midnight blue suit. Ed Miliband would wear a pillar-box red suit. Nick Clegg would be in canary yellow. The Green Party’s Natalie Bennett would be in bilious green. And Nigel Farage of UKIP would wear the purple-and-yellow stripes of a seaside entertainer. This solution will allow viewers to easily differentiate the parties without reference to their confusingly similar policies.
It was discussed that fuel tanks in motor vehicles would be converted from accepting gallons to the now poplar litre versions over a slow phasing-in period.
Approaches would be made to the Heinz food company to change their product range to Heinz 60 as opposed to the present Heinz 57 so as to go to the nearest square figure as this would help with auditing processes and saving a small amount of ink.
John Ward (left) and the Very Reverend Pedro Perrnackerpan
This motion was carried although the Very Reverend Pedro Perrnackerpan wondered if it was possible to enquire at the same time if they were considering manufacturing tins of beans on toast as his grill was in need of repair as the gasman had missed three appointments so far.
Guest speaker Baron Giles Fromhome of the St Ives and Huntingdon District Mountain Climbing Club was present to enquire as to the Party’s feeling about handrails being fitted on the local mountains and, after much discussion, it was agreed in principle that this would be possible but only on the left hand side going up, due to lack in resources. But it would be possible to use this facility coming back down by walking backwards though using caution with respect of possible bumping into those going up.
Lord Toby Jug’s letter to the newspapers was much admired
The Party Leader, Lord Toby Jug, was congratulated by the honourable members on having letters printed in the Independent, Daily Mail, and Daily Mirror, giving his unique take on the Battle of South Thanet… Murray v Farage.
Copious amounts of jelly and ice cream were then consumed before legendary politician and party leader, Lord Toby Jug, took to the stage and told all prospective candidates to return to their constituencies and prepare for government.
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 
I take it that quote about voters having difficulty distinguishing between the mainstream parties was a clever piece of irony? Both the Official Monster Raving Loony Party and the Eccentric Party are led by stout elderly men with wacky faux aristocratic names who wear top hats and a lot of badges, and enjoy pulling faces for the camera. Both of them are continuations of a very weak joke which had been on its last legs for some time when it finally died with Screaming Lord Sutch in 1999, and was in any case pinched by Sutch from a Monty Python sketch broadcast in 1974. And both of them have indistinguishable “policies” consisting of feeble witticisms that might have worked as filler material for the Two Ronnies 40 years ago.
Furthermore, the only reason there are two “different” parties is that two old friends of Sutch who had been sitting on his clapped-out bandwagon desperately flogging a dead horse for 14 years fell out, and the slightly less not-famous one said the other chap couldn’t be in his gang any more so he had to start his own. Even the names of the parties would have been almost identical if the electoral commission had allowed Lord Toby Jug to use the word “loony”.
So basically the electorate has a choice between Lord Something-Or-Other, who likes to gurn desperately for the cameras while shouting “Look at me! Look at me! Please look at me!”, isn’t the slightest bit funny, and wears a white top hat, and Lord Something-Or-Other, who likes to gurn desperately for the cameras while shouting “Look at me! Look at me! Please look at me!”, isn’t the slightest bit funny, and wears a black top hat.
Could I suggest that this new “Eccentric Party” tries to distinguish itself from the OMRLP by actually being funny? If Al Murray does indeed stand, he will be viciously satirizing UKIP in his Pub Landlord persona by showing the electorate that UKIP’s policies are slightly watered-down versions of the bigoted opinions of loud-mouthed fools. He will thus undoubtedly succeed in stealing plenty of protest votes from UKIP, while making a lot of people think twice about voting for them ever again. Also, as a professional comedian who has shown himself to be very good at his job, his campaign will genuinely entertain the voters, whether they end up voting for him or not. And I fail to see how performing a gig on election night is worse than attending the official count, where he wouldn’t be allowed to tell jokes or misbehave in any way, just stand at the back grinning awkwardly like the loonies always have.