The politics of Bucketheads and Fish Fingers

If you were riled by the Right, laughed at the Left or found the political middle ground too vanilla at the recent General Election (the first one, in case there’s been another one since I wrote this on Wednesday), there were some exciting independent candidates.

First up, in the local Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency, the (then) Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron was up against Mr Fish Finger, a man who changed his name by deed poll, and dressed as the orange easy-tea favourite.

His fishy-pun-filled “Manifishto” included promises of more fish fingers on hospital menus, no tax on chip shops, and an immigration policy guaranteeing “open waters for fish of any race, creed, colour or gender”. That probably didn’t go down well with UChip. With Farron taking the win by just 777 votes following a recount, Mr Fish Finger’s impressive 309 would have been firmly in the spotlight had the numbers bream slightly different.

Image if Tim had lost by a few hundred votes. That would have looked really fishy – the credibility of our democratic system would have been in a really difficult plaice. The Codfather also managed an appearance on Channel 4’s “The Last Leg”, despite getting battered at the polls.

Meanwhile, down in suburban Berkshire, the Maidenhead constituency was honoured by the presence of an intergalactic candidate, Lord Buckethead, who apparently enjoys “planet-conquering, dominating other species and Lovejoy”. His Lordship’s political CV is impressive. He also stood against Margaret Thatcher in ’87, and John Major in ’92. This time out, he was up against Theresa May.

Despite an impressive following of more than 90,000 on Twitter, the alien in black only managed 249 votes. His manifesto featured some impressive ideas, including the nationalisation of Adele, immediate reintroduction of Ceefax and a commitment to build a new Trident weapons system... then not actually bother because “They’re secret submarines, no one will ever know”.

With a visit to the US to appear on John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” show, his profile (much like his headgear) is currently very high.

Imagine if either of them had got in? Or a coalition government had to take into account the policies of a caped alien overlord or a breadcrumb-coated kids dinner staple? However, despite their best attempts, neither of the costumed crusaders got any closer to power than successfully upstaging two of the UK’s political party leaders, by drawing the eye away from Theresa and Tim at their respective moments of televisual triumph.

Even though the manifestos of both were widely viewed as daft, laughable and somewhat light on specific detail, both May and Farron retained their seats. Buckethead and Fish Finger return to, presumably, the distant universe and a freezer respectively.

Until next time then, gentlemen. Thanks for making this whole, sorry, episode more bearable and see you at a future General Election.

The way things are going, you may well be the sanest option on the voting slip.

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 16th of June 2017. The version they used online dropped the pluralisation of both political giants, whilst the print edition went with the altogether different "Breadcrumbs of comfort".

If you're on Twitter, I urge you to follow @LordBuckethead - the intergalactic space lord is highly entertaining.

Of course, Mr Fish Finger is now claiming Tim Farron's resignation as leader of the Liberal Democrats as a victory. Not quote sure that's how it works, but hey.

(CD A-Z: OK, this is weird and somewhat progressive for me. I'm listening to Transceive's "Exit to Nowhere" which I downloaded, so no physical format. So I'm 15 years behind everyone else... what's your problem? In an entirely non-digital way, I came across this after being handed a leaflet outside Jean Michel Jarre's gig in Glasgow after the event, which described their music as having a complimentary style. Good marketing. Good stuff, too.)