Living in a small village just to the east of Oxford, I fall into the district covered by the MP for Henley-on-Thames. The previous MP, Boris Johnson, recently succeeded in becoming the Mayor of London and so, yesterday, there was an election in my area to elect a new MP. (No, no, don’t worry. This isn’t becoming a political blog … I promise!)
Wishing to do my part in the democratic process, I went down to the village hall in the early evening. Outside the room where the voting was taking place was a copy of the ballot, so that voters could familiarise themselves with it and read the instructions on how to vote.
As I glanced down the ballot, I was bowled over by the third candidate on the list:
(Apologies for the poor quality photo. If you can’t read the text on the image, the third candidate in the list is Peter Thomas Bananaman, of 58 Reeds Avenue, Earley, Reading, RG5 5SR, standing for the Monster Raving Loony party.)
What?!? What the heck is that? I don’t recall getting any of their leaflets through the post. Well, I certainly didn’t know that the good people of the Monster Raving Loony party had put forward a candidate for the contest. That changes everything! I definitely need to re-consider how I was going to vote.
So how did I vote in the end? Not telling – it was a secret ballot!
