Mark Thomas

25/01/2010

As we head towards a general election, the agit-comic calls for candidates to back his People’s Manifesto

If  you want to stand as an independent candidate in the general election but do not have the money then read on as I am about to show you how you might be able to stand as a member of parliament, regardless.

It is not cheap standing as an MP. There are spin doctors to hire, poster campaigns to shell out for, crack whores to pay off and coffee bars to buy for young lovers. On top of that, every candidate has to cough up £500 as a deposit, which most independents lose, though the odd Labour candidate might just be joining them in a few seats.

It used to cost £150 to stand, until the leopard print trouser-clad Monster Raving Loony Party candidate Screaming Lord Sutch stood against Margaret Thatcher. She accepted victory, talking of new directions for Britain, and he spoke of the great day for Looneyism, waved a top hat about and mugged at the cameras.

Thatcher deemed this behaviour lacking in gravitas and shortly afterwards the amount of money required to stand rose. Although her aim was to discourage “frivolous” candidates, Sutch continued to stand and although dead he should be remembered by anyone whose pet has a passport – as this was official Raving Loony policy. If you can raise the £500, I recommend standing as it is well worth a go.

Not only do you get a chance to muscle in on election debates and hustings, but one of the bonuses for candidates is that the Post Office has to deliver your election manifesto to every household in the constituency. The comic and club owner Malcolm Hardee stood for election in South East London and got the Post Office to deliver a mail out for his comedy club to all and sundry, under the guise of a party political manifesto for the Beer, Fags And Skittles Party.

None of this gets you any nearer to standing for free though, so let me explain in more detail. Last year I toured the country with a comedy show called The Manifesto, getting audiences to submit their policy ideas, which would make the world a better place to live in, improve their lives or just piss off their neighbours.

Each night the ideas would be discussed on stage and the audience would vote for their favourite policy.

The policies would be a mixture of the serious and absurd, grand and petty, ingenious and spiteful, and over the year audiences have voted:

• To introduce a maximum wage.
• For Boris Johnson to be the Olympic torch and to be lit on the opening of the Games.
• To nationalise Tesco.
• For MPs to be paid loans instead of wages, like students, as many move on to highly paid jobs as a consequence of attending parliament. They should therefore pay back their loans.
• For the NHS to hire OCD sufferers as cleaners to be rid of MRSA

In Dublin, they voted to abolish the weather report at the end of the news and replace it with an old bloke sitting at a bar saying, “shoite”, and in Belfast they voted to “ban people wearing pyjamas in the street”.

A more complete set of policies and explanations is published by Ebury Press, titled Mark Thomas Presents The People’s Manifesto and at this point “the game is afoot”. I asked the publishers if they would stump up the money for someone to stand in the election, using The People’s Manifesto as the starting point for their campaign.

They have said yes and have also agreed to chuck in £500’s worth of campaign expenses too. So if anyone wants to stand in the election using The People’s Manifesto as their platform then Ebury and myself will publish details of how you can apply to stand for parliament on our websites.

Go on, have a go. Much like sex, elections are more fun if you are actually doing it rather than spectating.

The People’s Manifesto (Ebury Press, £4.99) is published on January 28; www.markthomasinfo.com