I would suppose that if you won, it wasn’t a joke after all…
Ian Paisley won and was an MP for many years. Surely he meets the qualification of a joke candidate? Maybe even a raving looney!
So in1981, I presume that some staid and proper bureaucrat declared the official election results–and he had to announce (and pronounce!) that name in public, while keeping a straight face?
According to the Guardian;
I don’t know how the announcements were handled for the London Assembly elections earlier this year, but the Returning Officer fir Brent and Harrow had a challenge with the Conservative candidate: Stefan Bucovineanul-Voloseniuc
Paisley was certainly an extremist, and probably a raving looney, but he was never a joke.
When he was finally persuaded to co-operate in power-sharing under the Good Friday Agreement, and accept Martin McGuinness as his deputy (despite his rumoured record in the Provisional IRA), they were seen so often "sharing a joke’ that they were nicknamed The Chuckle Brothers.
I wouldn’t consider that humiliated. I think taking that ridiculous name and trying to make it serious is actually funnier than the real thing.
But which names are middle names, and which are part of a multi-word first or last name? I would parse that as “Biscuit Barrel” being his last name, so he should, in short, be referred to as “Tarkin Biscuit Barrel”.
Back in 2017…
Seeing as it’s hyphenated throughout I would tend to assume that Fin-Tim-Lin-Bin-Whin-Bim-Lim-Bus-Stop-F’tang-F’tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel is the full surname.
You know, of the Stoke-on-Trent Fin-Tim-Lin-Bin-Whin-Bim-Lim-Bus-Stop-F’tang-F’tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrels.
Yes. But when people have hyphenated surnames its fairly common in many contexts for just one of them to be mentioned, often the last one. Just ask Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill.
Fiddle-de-dee.
America has had many outstanding loony candidates for higher office, such as Vermin Love Supreme, Pat Paulsen, Kinky Friedman and of course James Traficant.
I know him from his 1970 album Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends, (his “heavy friends” included Jimmy Page, John Bonham,Jeff Beck, Nicky Hopkins and Noel Redding).
Ah, a wouldbe statesman with cultural hinterland. Always a good thing.
Goodspaceguy has appeared somewhere on Seattle and King County ballots every election as far back as I can remember.
Here in Olympia we had a guy who called himself “Democritus Blantayre” run for city council a few times. His sole campaign promise was to abolish the city council and establish a direct democracy. I once saw him walking down the middle of the street in my neighborhood shouting slogans with no clear overall message - something along the lines of “God bless America! Fuck the police! Four more years! Women’s rights now! I like Ike!”
What I want to know is, have any of them ever gotten their deposit back? (Is it still £500 against 5% of the vote?)
I can’t be bothered to research it, but I’d be more than surprised (if for some bizarre reason the only candidates were some ReformUK gammon and Count Binface, things might be different)
Count Binface got 24,260 votes in this year’s London mayoral election, but that only amounts to 1% of the vote and he finished in 11th place. In the parliamentary election that just happened he got 308 votes and finished 6th, which he boasted is the highest he’s placed to date.