The Official Monster Raving Loony Party have contested several parliamentary by-elections, but statistically at least this must go down as the worst of the current millennium – although for how long it will hold that record remains to be seen.
Our candidate Sir NosDa (Shadow Minister for Information Super Highway Maintenance) was reluctant to stand as he claims not to be a Brummie. However he is practically a local candidate due to completing two marathons along the canals underneath the Spaghetti Junction.
NosDa kept quite busy with his day job and his second jobs so only found time to visit the constituency each Friday at lunch time, where a few enlightening conversations with voters revealed that not many people would vote for him unless he got an haircut.
The media were quite preoccupied with other events. Storms, world war three, and an earthquake all conspired against the Good Knight’s attempt to promote real issues that the election 
should be fought upon:
An Ice Cream Van selling a ’99’ flake for more than £1 should be fined hundreds and thousands.
One local news source ‘organised’ a very well attended hustings event, but failed to inform our candidate until the day before so he was unable to make plans to attend. His absence at the Candidates and Agent’s briefings was also noted upon / complained about by one of the opposing election agents.
To take up the slack in the campaign Howling Laud Hope spent a week in the constituency and surrounding JD Wetherspoon pubs, a
nd courted the votes of all 49 members of the Erdington Social Club.
When election day finally arrived it was a dull, dark, damp, day – that probably alliterates with other adjectives too. Our tellers at the polling stations reported a very low turnout.
Whilst the Labour party campaigners were busy knocking on the last few doors, desperate to get their own members out to vote, the Loony party delegation met with all the members voting in Erdington for a sociable pint and a lamb curry.
By the time we arrived at the count they had already finished counting our 49 votes, so there was not much to do other than chat with the other candidates, photo-bomb the opposing teams, and be quite polite to some journalists.
We finished the night 12th out of 14 places
| Party / Candidate | Votes |
|---|---|
| Apathy | 46,039 |
| Labour | 9,413 |
| Conservative | 6,147 |
| Trade Unionist | 360 |
| Reform | 293 |
| Green | 236 |
| Lib Dem | 173 |
| Independent | 109 |
| Christian Peoples | 79 |
| Another Independent | 76 |
| Spoiled Ballots | 59 |
| The Good Knight, Sir NosDa – Loony | 49 |
| A third Independent | 14 |
| Bus Pass Elvis | 7 |
T
he 10 candidates polling less than 5% helped to boost the local economy by contributing £5,000 to Birmingham Council in the form of Democracy Tax / Election Deposit payments.
The Good Knight Sir NosDa