Fringe benefits | 9 April 2015

No election night is complete without a man dressed as King Arthur waving a plastic sword as the result is read out. Eccentricity is the bedrock of British democracy. The freedom of a madman to waste £500 to get on the ballot is precious. On these islands, we have a right to rave. And sometimes what we rant about is quite revealing.

I’ve been fascinated by eccentric independent candidates ever since as a teenager I met Mr Mark Ellis, a perennial independent running against EU domination and casual littering. He used to patrol Sevenoaks high street with a shopping trolley, collecting rubbish. A profile in the local newspaper revealed that he slept on two chairs pushed together in his living room, and that he shared his house with a duck. Mr Ellis’s platform was a mix of conspiracy theory and a commitment to public service — and it’s that slightly misdirected desire to help others that informs the best of the fringe candidates.

Now that I have moved to Brighton, I’m spoilt for choice in eccentric independents. Brightonians are just children with adult tastes. Charlotte Rose, a ‘high-class courtesan’ from Exeter, is using her Brighton Pavilion candidacy to get people to talk more honestly about sex. ‘Sex is the second biggest human drive, after survival,’ she writes in her manifesto, ‘and yet it is ignored in politics.’ Ms Rose has clearly never been to the Strangers Bar at 2 a.m. She also wonders if the best-qualified people to teach sex education in schools might be professional ‘experts’, by which she means prostitutes. I for one would have matured much faster if my biology classes had been taught by Miss Whiplash and her human ashtray.