The Dartmoor town of Ashburton is famous for many things.

Pivotal in the tin mining industry in the nineteenth century, it is the largest town in the Dartmoor National Park and was recently named one of England’s coolest places to live by a trendy London magazine.

But political history was made in Ashburton, thanks to the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, which was established in 1982 undistinguished rock musician and former DJ David Sutch, known as Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow.

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In 1987 the party was at its most active in Devon. Totnes pub landlord Tim Langsford stood against Tory grandee Anthony Steen in the South Hams at the general election and polled 277 votes. Mr Steen won with 34,218.

Alan Hope, who ran the Golden Lion in Ashburton, then became the first member of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party to hold public office when he was elected unopposed to Ashburton Town Council.

He served for more than a decade and became mayor in 1998. The Golden Lion had become the official party headquarters, and was the venue for its lively annual conferences.

Screaming Lord Sutch took his own life in 1999, and Mr Hope later moved to Hampshire, where he became a member of Fleet council – once again uncontested.

In the sixties he had sung with Screaming Lord Sutch, who made him deputy chairman of his new party in 1982. His election to Ashburton Town Council in 1987 caused a dilemma in the party as they had previously been decided that any member who was elected to a public office should be expelled.

That rule was changed at the 1987 party conference.

Mr Hope, who is also known as Howling Laud Hope, is the current leader of the Official Monster Raving Loonies. He and his pet cat, Catmando, were jointly elected as leaders but since June 2002 Mr Hope has been sole leader following Catmando’s death in a road accident.

He competed with a previous feline friend, Mandu, pictured, to be leader when he lived in Ashburton.

To date he has stood for election to parliament more than 30 times without success. The 576 votes he polled while finishing sixth out of six candidates in North East Hampshire in 2019 is his best result to date, along with getting 1.6 per cent of the votes in Leicester South, where he finished fifth and last in 2011.

Other party members have enjoyed success elsewhere, including in Devon.

Sir Grumpus L Shorticus has been named as the Official Monster Raving Loony Party candidate for Ynys Môn.

Describing himself as ‘Half Man Half Biscuit’ Sir Grumpus is one of 22 Monster Raving Loony candidates standing across the UK for the Westminster Parliamentary election on 4th July.

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Sir Grumpus’ key policies include creating a unique time zone for Wales, building a third Menai crossing …. From Dublin and deporting illegal Grey Squirrels to Rwanda.

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Sir Grumpus L Shorticus’s SIX-STEP Plan for Ynys Môn

1. A UNIQUE TIME ZONE FOR WALES – Reduce the hour from 60 minutes to 40, fully reversing the 20mph speed limits back to what they were without the cost of changing all the signs – again; and creating a whole new industry in manufacturing Welsh time pieces.

2. BUILD THE 3RD CROSSING – FROM DUBLIN – But fiscal stewardship is key, so a return crossing will only be built when public finances allow.

3. GREY SQUIRRELS ENTERING ANGLESEY ILLEGALLY WILL BE SENT TO RWANDA – Badgers, to their county of origin.

4. YNYS MÔN TO RE-JOIN THE EU – Build Wylfa B, reverse the generated power into the wind-farms which would then propel Anglesey to an EU country of choice.

5. A PRIVATE MEMBER’S BILL TO MAKE THE MISUSE OR OMISSION OF APOSTROPHE’S A CRIMINAL OFFENCE – Improper grammar in text messages will also incur a Fixed Penalty, increasing Treasury revenues a trillion-fold – an App to be developed to make automatic payment on hitting ‘Send’.

6. A FLEXIBLE APPROACH TO POLITICS – These pledges are sincerely held beliefs and promises, but may be changed on a whim.

7. IMPROVE MATHS EDUCATION FOR ADULTS

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/13731040

British democracy is designed in such a way that the collision of the country’s most powerful people and its most powerfully motivated pranksters is all but inevitable. To stand for parliament all you need is a deposit of £500 and ten signatures from people registered to vote in your chosen constituency. The low barriers to entry are a historical accident. Deposits were introduced in 1918, part of the same bill that extended the franchise to women over 30 and men who didn’t own property. The sum was set at £150 (about £9,000 in today’s money), seemingly designed to protect Parliament from being overrun by the men and women who were newly allowed to vote for it.

Yet inflation gradually lowered the cost until it was a mere inconvenience, opening the gate for a minor stampede of mad cows. Some joke candidates were single-issue satirists. In 1979 Auberon Waugh, a journalist, ran for the “Dog Lovers’ Party” in Devon against Jeremy Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal Party (Thorpe had been charged with conspiring to murder his lover, Norman Scott, after a bungling hitman bumped off Scott’s dog. He was later acquitted).

Others had broader platforms. In 1983 the founder of the Monster Raving Loony Party ran as a candidate in a London by-election. “Screaming” Lord Sutch, a former DJ, wore a top hat and an animal-print jacket. A self-styled peer of the realm, he started a trend for joke candidates to adopt noble titles – a way to poke fun at the most obviously ridiculous element of British democracy.

Sutch proved something of a prophet – his “joke” policies kept being passed into law. As a young man he had founded the National Teenage Party, which demanded votes for 18-year-olds (the voting age used to be 21) and an end to the state’s broadcasting monopoly. (Check, check.) The Monster Raving Loony Party’s proposal for pet passports also eventually became law, and another long-standing Loony demand will be met if the Labour Party reduces the voting age to 16, as it has promised to do if it wins the election.

“Blackadder”, a popular tv sitcom, satirised the Monster Raving Loonies with its fictional “Standing at the Back Dressed Stupidly Looking Stupid Party”, while Peter Hennessy, a constitutional historian, praised them as being “part of the continuity of the realm”.

In 1985 the deposit was raised from £150 to £500 in an attempt to make sure only serious candidates stood for Parliament. By then it was already too late. Lamenting the flood of candidates “dressed like idiots, behaving like idiots and waving idiotic slogans”, David Mellor, a Conservative minister, said: “I think we are just going to have to live with this.”

Archive

A man standing for election against Jacob Rees-Mogg in a mask covered in beans and eggs wants to introduce a “statutory brunch hour.”

Phin “Barmy Brunch” Adams is the Official Monster Raving Loony Party candidate for North East Somerset and Hanham. He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that at the time he decided to become a parliamentary candidate, the constituency had looked more like a safe seat.

He said: “I wanted to run against someone who looked to be safe in their seat to create a Portillo moment if possible or at the very least — let’s be realistic here — provide a none of the above alternative for those voters who are either disaffected by politics or whatever.”

He added: “If people don’t ordinarily vote, then vote extraordinary.”

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If elected as Barmy Brunch, he wants all workplaces to have to stop and serve brunch between 11am and midday. He said he wants to “MAKE BRUNCH GREAT AGAIN” — but that there is a serious point behind it too.

He said: “Yes, it's ambitious, it's bold, it's an hour long. If we can just pause and just breathe, its one of the things that I think is key to upholding the good mental health that we all really desire.”

He warned that the mental health system was “underfunded” and “broken.” He said: “However the policy manifesto is read, it can be taken as a joke, that’s fine if it brings a smile to someone’s face that’s fine — but equally, if someone comes and accuses me of not taking politics seriously, I am incredibly serious about positive mental health.”

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Barmy Brunch said he had looked at Ed Davey and considered the Liberal Democrats, but was worried by the party going against its 2010 manifesto policy of voting against tuition fee rises, which happened when he was a student. He said: “At the very least, the Monster Raving Loony Party has never broken a promise. That’s because they’ve never been elected.

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He added that some friends had told him his Barmy Bruch mask looked “scary” or criminal. But he said: “I would like to see a criminal get involved in any criminal activity wearing a face mask that has beans and egg and has holes cut out for the eyes. I think it's more in the realm of Mr Blobby than one of the drug lords in Colombia.”

Amid the seriousness of general election campaigning, one political party has always stood out as the playful alternative — and in a world of chaos, the Monster Raving Loony Party is vying for fifth time lucky in Lincolnshire, or are they?

Coun Peter Hill, the vice chairperson of Great and Little Carlton Parish Council, is again in the Louth and Horncastle constituency standing in the General Election under his Iconic Arty-Pole alias as a member of the Monster Raving Loony Party — facing off against Health Secretary Victoria Atkins on July 4.

It is a party that has been the self-confessed chaos of the political asylum since its formation in 1982, and with policies such as fitting cushions on the front of all trains to make them safer, or changing everyone’s name to Chris to avoid identity theft — they can be forgiven for perhaps not being taken seriously at times.

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That isn’t to say he doesn’t have a few eye-catching, headline-grabbing daft policies of his own. He has long campaigned for socks to be sold in threes, asking “have you ever lost an odd sock in the wash?”

“You have a left sock, which we call the Labour Party, a right sock, which is the Conservatives, and a sock that fits both feet, which we call the Liberal Democrats.”

Another of his policies is making unicorns a protected species, arguing this would ensure more visibility for the mythical creature — stating “only children can see them these days.”

Arty-Pole is also a firm believer in “cash is king, but barter is better” and says that while his party would roll out a 99p coin to prevent the 1p change we are all so used to nowadays, he fears it would have an impact on charity.

“All those charity boxes on shop counters won’t get that spare penny if we do that,” he said.

But how does Iconic Arty-Pole actually think he will do at this election? In 2019 he received 1,044 votes, which is the most any Monster Raving Loony Party candidate has received in the 21st Century — but he isn’t hoping for much better, surprisingly.

“If I get 5% of the votes and get my £500 deposit back, I will be asked to leave the party on the grounds of taking it too seriously! Nobody in the entire life of our party has managed to do that.

Last time he left the building with the least amount of votes.

But undeterred, Earl Elvis of East Anglia is back for a second time standing against Liz Truss for her South West Norfolk seat.

The Monster Raving Loony Party candidate, whose real name is Ashley Inwood, hopes he can woo voters with their characteristically whacky policies, campaigning with the slogan: "Forget the trash, vote for Ash".

These range from enforcing the sale of socks in packs of three so you always have a spare, introducing a 99p coin to make pennies obsolete and for all political material to be printed on soft toilet paper so it can be "recycled in the appropriate manner."

Crewe and Nantwich Monster Raving Loony Party candidate for the 2024 General Election, Lord Psychobilly Tractor, says "After 14 years of Tory rule, it's time for some loony change."

Lord Psychobilly Tractor, who lives just a short tractor drive from the constituency in Cheshire East, says Crewe is his favourite town to visit.

He told Nub News: "Our Loony policies promise to bring a breath of fresh, zany air to local politics.

1. 24-hour licensing laws
2. Lowering the voting age to 18
3. Abolition of dog licences
4. The legalisation of commercial radio
5. The pedestrianisation of Carnaby Street
6. Passports for pets
7. Abolition of the 11 plus exam