Hey, Uncle Sandro, how we don’t really know, but seems like politicians can be only wrong.

If you had a vote yesterday I really hope you took some time to read the mayoral manifestos on the London Elects webpage. I did so last night, realising I had no idea who to award my second vote to, and it was both terrifying and hilarious. Here are some of my favourite political jackasses.

Matt O’Connor
English Democrats
First off, this is not a man. This is a creation. Somewhere in this world, Dr. Fox has secured the funds to build a lab deep in the earth’s crust, and in that lab he built a man based on his own image. Foxy gave him a rudimentary history lesson, made him angry about kilts, named him Matt and released his creation into the world.

This is what the leader of Dr. Fox’s master race has to say about things:

“We all remember a country we called home. A green and pleasant land that gave the world the English language, Democracy, the Mother of Parliaments and the Magna Carta.”

Seriously? That’s his political angle, to make people feel nostalgic for the days of the Magna Carta? This particular piece of English legislation hasn’t crossed my own mind since I studied it at school circa 1992, and I struggle to think of the last time it came up in any sort of conversation.

…apart from when Hugo, Toby, Rupert and I went boating at Toby’s divine family estate and discussed all manner of bloody brilliant English things over ginger beer and hard boiled eggs. We made a top ten. The Magna Carta came third, beaten only by cricket and the Queen. What ho!

Matt is also Very Angry About Scotland. You get the feeling he’d start stabbing the place up if you so much as offered him a piece of shortbread. He probably spends his days writing letters to the ASA complaining about that Wine Gums advert.

Alan Craig
Christian Choice
Say hello to your friendly religious fundamentalist candidate! I don’t know about you guys, but in a diverse city like London we DEFINITELY need the person in power to bleat on about Jesus. You know, just to bring the community together. Well, the Christian community, anyway. Just ignore the fact London is made up of Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jews, Rastafarians, Atheists and more religions than I have time to think of. In short, there’s loads, and the vast majority don’t give a toss about Luke or what he had to say in 22:26. For that reason, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that ‘Jesus said “The leader is the one who serves”‘ has no place in a political manifesto. Also, if it’s a direct quote Luke had poor grammatical skills. Wanker.

Beyond that, here’s the first three points on Craig’s winning manifesto:

The Christian Choice priorities:
- Promote marriage and stable family as a long-term solution to youth crime, educational under-achievement and child poverty
- Stop the mega-mosque at West Ham near 2012 Olympics proposed by a controversial Islamic sect (MegaMosqueNoThanks.com)
- Champion London’s most vulnerable – the unborn, the elderly, the refugee

Which essentially translates as:

- Continue to blame single parents for all the crime on our streets.
- Pretend that racial and religious diversity doesn’t exist in London. Also, ensure even more hostility between The Good Guys (henceforth known as ‘Us’) and the Muslim community (henceforth known as ‘The Terrorists’).
- Ban abortion.

Cunt.

Finally, let’s go see what everyone’s favourite neo-Nazis have to say.

Richard Barnbrook
BNP
You see this chump? See his wistful face? Guess what he’s thinking. I’ll give you a little time to construct an answer.

…

If you said, ‘Our wonderful party is so inclusive! YAY!’, you’d be wrong.

If you said, ‘I hate it when people think we’re racists. It makes me have sad face. ‘, you’d be wrong.

If you said, ‘I think I’ll have a wank over the Stephen Lawrence thing later… no matter how much time passes it still makes me stiff as a board!’, you’d be closer, but still wrong.

What this absolute cockend is thinking is:

“Remember London the way it used to be? Clean, friendly and safe.”

No, Richard. No, I don’t remember that. What you’ve done, right, is confuse London, the sprawling capital city of our dear nation, with a rural idyll somewhere in Cornwall. You know the one – it’s where all the nice, non-threatening white people live.

London has never been clean, London has never been friendly, and London has never been safe. It’s a fucking capital city. It has eight million people living in it, not to mention all the commuters and visitors. Nowhere this big, this busy, this exciting will ever be clean and safe. As for friendly, why not try being a little less terrified of anyone who doesn’t share your dour pallor? It helps breed the wacky things like friendship you crave so much.

You know, I could lay into this asshat for days. Look at some of his policies!

- British jobs for British workers

British jobs? What exactly is a ‘British’ job? Tea maker? Yorkshire pudding chef? Stout landlord at the local free house?

- Build a better NHS

That’s something for the MPs of the House of Commons to deal with. Unless you have something to say about LON-DON, get off my land.

- Scrap the congestion charge

YEAH! DOWN WITH ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN! Fucking PRICK.

- Better education for all our people

Again, not your fucking concern, matey. And don’t think for a second that any of us are stupid enough to miss ‘our people’. That’s right, keep the immigrants down where they belong – uneducated and too underqualified to do anything but sweep our dirty, dirty streets. That’s progress, that is. That’s what it’s all about. Ooh, I’m feeling rigid.

What do things like ‘build a better NHS’ and ‘Better education’ mean, anyway? They’re just words. We all want our free healthcare to survive – it’s a wonderful ideal. But you can’t just say it, you have to say how you’re going to do it. Or don’t, since, y’know, it has no place in this election anyway.

The worst thing the BNP does is use quotes from people ‘just like you’ to try and convince you it’s okay to be a racist these days. Here are the ones they picked this time:

People Like You Voting BNP

HOUSEWIFE – Lorraine Henry
“I’m terrified about my children’s future. Knife and gun crime are out of control and paedophiles are released back into the community. Only the British National Party have policies which keep our children safe.”

BUILDER – Ken Seager
“I vote BNP because I’m proud of my country and our heritage. We should celebrate things like St. George’s Day and other Christian festivals like St Patrick’s Day instead of other festivals such as Ramadan and Eid.”

STUDENT – Samantha Winter
“I’m voting BNP because I’m Irish and the BNP are the only party that cares about the indigenous peoples of these islands. Our jobs are under threat from economic migrants and only the BNP will protect our interests.”

Now, these are clearly made up. Any halfwit can see that. But doesn’t it make your skin crawl? Take this fictional Ken Seager character. His major concerns when it comes to governing a city is whether or not we celebrate St. George’s Day. He doesn’t want to be celebrating Ramadan and Eid. I can’t even summon up the words to describe now sick this kind of rhetoric makes me.

Oh, and notice the insidious inference in the title? People Like You Voting BNP. Read it again. Poor grammar? Bad English? Maybe. But you can read it two ways and both offend me.

So what did people have left? The UK Independence Party, another right wing wankathon that’s desperate to remind us how bad Europe is; Left List, whose candidate seems fine and dandy with a solid background in feminist and anti-racist political work, but clearly has no hope of winning; and Winston McKenzie, an independent with a grainy photo and no manifesto.

Then there are the real front runners: Ken, Boris, PC Brian and the lovely Sian Berry, representing the Green party. When you look at his competition outside of those three (and Left List), Boris almost seems like a warm, fluffy option.

How terrifying is that?