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After three weeks, even confessed election addict Alex Renton finds his enthusiasm flagging. He presents some of the strangest, silliest and most boring wannabe MPs.

Silliest Tory Candidate

Mike Weatherley, the Conservatives' Barking candidate, grabbed me at an Ann Widdecombe election meeting last week.

"You're from the Standard! Good! I've got a great exclusive story for you." Journalists know that these words usually signal something that is exactly the opposite. But Mike's tale deserves an airing.

"Well, I've got a Staffordshire bull terrier." (This is a fashion thing: Right-wing Tories have attack dogs, in the way that Lib Dems have bicycles.) "Now, you know that the Germans are trying to ban Staffordshire bull terriers? OK, this is the headline: Germans are barking mad (geddit?) over candidate's dog."

What a great story, I said. He e-mailed me later: "I too think the Dog story is a real cracker. Its (sic) a good story on its own, but add in the fact that I have one of these dogs and its Barking ... the headlines write themselves! I had also hoped that we could get some National publicity out of this (and dare I say television publicity)."

Well, here you are, Mike ...

Note: The German Embassy confirms that the Bundestag has no plans to ban Staffordshire bull terriers. Most German states have introduced controls - but no bans - on the ownership and breeding of certain fighting dogs, including bull terriers, after a 1997 incident when a child was mauled to death.

If elected: Would ban dachshunds. And Weimaraners

Chances of being an MP: Poor. Margaret Hodge is no one's favourite Blair Babe but she has a near-16,000 majority in Barking.

Most 'youthful' candidate

"I don't know about 'Ali G lookalike', but I have been known to do the odd impression," said Ilford North's Lib-Dem candidate, 22-year-old Gavin "Gav" Stollar, when I rang him. Go on then, do him. "I can't, I'm in the library." Do it quietly! "Ok, ummm, here goes: I is here with my main man from The Independent and I understand he is looking to do a piece on me." Boyakasha!

Do the voters like it? "It goes down a storm in schools." But schoolkids don't have a vote, Gav! "Well, they do in the Upper Sixth. Look, I am a half-serious candidate, you know."

If elected: Will be getting a lot more punani.

Chances: Sadly low. The Lib Dems got just 10 per cent of the vote in 1997.

Most objectionable candidate

There are a lot of pretty unattractive people in politics. Many of those one would least like to share a battle-bus with are, I'm afraid, New Tories. It's said that Parliament's new Conservative intake will be hard-Right, hanging and flogging types who still live with their mums. But the Nasty prize has to go to 71-year-old Sir Peter Tapsell for his crazed obsession with the Hun.

Tapsell was 11 years-old when the Germans last threatened Britain with invasion but the trauma marked him for life. "A single European currency was first proposed by the Nazi Reichsbank to Hitler at the time of Dunkirk ... now it is EU policy", the non sequitur comparing well with his remarks about Helmut Schröder's Future of Europe discussion document needing better attention than our grandparents gave to Hitler's Mein Kampf. Sensible tactical voting in his seat of Louth and Horncastle would send him off to grumble into a gin and tonic in his club and embarrass us no more.

If elected: Would re-form Dad's Army.

Chances: Fair. Lab and Lib Dems both need a swing of about seven per cent against him.

Dullest Tory candidate

Sir Sydney Chapman, Chipping Barnet. His achievements in Parliament since 1997? "One of my most satisfying contributions was to support and speak for David Amess's Warm Homes Bill and, with MPs from both sides of the House, convince the Government of the importance of insulating all homes within the next 10 years."

If elected: Will support the Milk Cartons (Greater Ease of Opening) Bill.

Chances: Fair. Has a 1,000 majority over Labour in this natural Tory seat.

Oh so Nineties candidate

It's just about blasphemous to say it, but haven't we had enough of The Man In The Off-White Suit? Four years after his triumphant unseating of the most grasping Tory of all, Neil Hamilton, Martin Bell is now standing in Brentwood and Ongar against Christian fundamentalism - www.bellforbrentwood.com .

It's certainly true that a fair number of New Tories are born again (strange, given their "Deport thy Neighbour" policies), but there's something tired about Bell's own holier-than-thou stuff that makes you wonder if it's time he went back to the old day job. Which was being the Man from Del Monte.

If elected: Same old thorn-in-the-side stuff.

Chances: Low - likely to be crucified, in fact. Official Conservative - and Christian - Eric Pickles has a near-10,000 majority. Four other independents are standing.

Smuggest New Labour type

I don't really have much against Karen Buck, Labour candidate for North Kensington and Regent's Park, except that I voted her into Parliament last time.

And there's still litter in my street, and a crack house opposite, and a nightmare on the Tube and a Queen in Bucking ham Palace. So she'd better buck her ideas up because I'm thinking of voting Liberal Democrat.

Notting Hillites vociferously complain about Buck's failure properly to represent the constituency, but, then, legalising cocaine is not really on the main-stream agenda, slavishly populist though New Labour undoubtedly is.

The only time I have actually noticed Buck is when she claimed in the Commons that Ken Livingstone's campaign to be mayor would "put him in debt to extremists". Oh yeah?

If elected: More loyal support for the Great Leader. Perhaps a junior ministerial job sometime before the decade is out.

Chances: Good. Lib Dems need more than a 15 per cent swing to win the seat.

Vilest challenge to Cabinet minister

Charles Thomson of the Stuckist Party intends to throw out our Culture Secretary Chris Smith in the Islington South and Finsbury seat because he reckons Smith is "cowed by the cultural establishment and unwilling to risk unpopularity with them". Phew! Luckily, election rules allow us to publish this gross libel.

The Stuckist manifesto goes further, likening the Prime Minister to Thomson's girlfriend, "willing to promise anything - in the future". Thomson, an artist himself, says he doesn't want a grant. But he'd like one for places like the King's Head Theatre in Islington - "small, good, unconventional" - and a victim of Smith and his cohorts' "disgraceful conspiracy with the global conglomerate that is the art establishment and Tracey Emin".

If elected: Will turn C Smith into a Saatchi Gallery installation. In formaldehyde.

Chances: "None," says Charles - Smith has a 14,500 majority over the Lib Dems - but it will have been art.

Most cynical stunt

Sister Nun of the Above will be standing in Hampstead and Highgate. "Nun of the Above," says campaign manager Piers Gee, " is a serious but entertaining new venture in British Politics," (strange - because it looks more like an abuse of the democratic system in order to raise the profile of a PR agency whose name we won't mention here) "that gives voters the chance to place a vote of dissatisfaction with the candidates on offer.

"Our candidate's name will be at the bottom of the ballot paper under the moniker Nun of the Above." (www.nunoftheabove.com) Gee promises a governmental programme including legalising cannabis and ending world hunger, but the truth looks a little more banal.

It does, however, give us a chance to print a photo of Hampstead Labour candidate Glenda Jackson looking foxy as Sister Alexander in the 1976 film Nasty Habits.

If elected: would be richer.

Chances: Nun.

Second most dull Labour candidate

Harrow West is, of course, nearly in Wales. But it did seem that having an MP called Gareth Thomas is pushing the link a bit far. Especially since there has been a genuine Welsh MP called Gareth Thomas in Clywd West. Voters should obviously reject Harrow's boyo to save the lobby confusion. He isn't London's most boring Labour backbencher - that's Ealing's Stephen Pound. But Gareth introduced two 10-minute Bills on renewable energy in the last Parliament.

If elected: Will change name to Gary Toms.

Chances: Slim. If the Tories can't knock out his 1,100 majority they may as well pack it all in.

 

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