How to put a f**king nutter on your local council

BORED? Sick of all the mainstream parties? Ready for a harmless protest vote that will put a person categorically unfit for political office onto your council? Here’s how: 

Rule out anyone who’s been vetted

Labour and the Tories have whole teams analysing their candidates’ social media presence, looking for that one post in 2014 when they pushed for wholesale slaughter of all Norwegians. Reform didn’t even do that for MPs, so their putative councillors’ closets hold whole conga lines of skeletons. That’s fun.

Judge from the photograph

A quick scan of how the candidates have chosen to represent themselves is helpful. Professional, well-groomed, bland? F**k that. You’re looking for an unhinged man or woman glaring down the camera like they’ve hated it since it slighted them in a tearoom in 1986. Airbrushed Mussolini portraits in background a bonus.

Cross-reference with local newspapers

You can rely on a true neighbourhood lunatic to have a track record. They’ll be a regular in the press whether pointing at something – a closed squirrel sanctuary, a condom on a war memorial, a mysterious patch of scorched grass they claim is evidence of alien activity – or being convicted of ABH and malicious communications.

Consider their age

Obviously a 79-year-old man with no previous record of political appointments is going to have spicy opinions, especially on various embattled minorities. But don’t underestimate the 19-year-old who’s improbably decided a councillor’s life is for him. He’s likely to be even more internet-addled than Elon Musk.

Check out the independents

All of the above is pointing in one direction: vote Reform. And yes, that way you’re certain to get a demented man convinced small boat migrants are arriving in landlocked West Northamptonshire. But take a moment to consider those independents. Do they exude an aura of madness that would warn you off sitting on their side of the bus?

Don’t worry about consequences

Best of all, like with the European elections of yore, there’s no need to have regrets. Your chosen headcase will attend approximately three meetings, not understand any rules, shout incoherently about flytipping paedophiles getting arts grants and then never attend again, leaving the council to their usual mismanagement and corruption.

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Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant: celebrity couples who should be forced back together to please the public

DOES Liz Hurley’s new relationship anger you, because she should still be with Hugh? Should that be made to happen whether they want it or not, along with these? 

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson

The Twilight couple getting back together would make Twilight fans feel young and sexy again, and let’s face it neither of them has done better. Easy to arrange: the obsessives who create endless terrible fanfic and art undoubtedly already have plans to kidnap their heroes in the style of Stephen King’s Misery and have prepared the basement.

Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant

If Oasis are back together, why not them? Suggestions that the ‘gorgeous posh girl and jolly nice Oxford chap make perfect couple’ media narrative was childish nonsense can be ignored. They should be together again and all that prostitute business entirely forgotten like it already is. Divine Brown, wasn’t she called?

Abba

Listening to Abba just isn’t the same now Benny, Anni-Frid, Bjorn and Agnetha aren’t all going out with each other like in 1974. Therefore they should  remarry and all live together in a Scandinavian eco-home next to a fjord, wearing jumpsuits and writing shimmering pop classics. It doesn’t have to be up to them.

Amber Heard and Johnny Depp

Sure, there’s been bad blood, but if Amber cooked Johnny his favourite meal it might make up for destroying his life and branding him a rapist. He could do his bit by restricting his psychotic drink and drug binges to three nights a week. The rabid internet warriors on both sides would admit this is what they really wanted.

Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love

There’s an obvious problem with this and yes, Dave Grohl might be reluctant to reform Nirvana now. But there is actually a bigger obstacle to them picking up where they left off, and that’s Kurt being dead. However, advances in AI technology and robotics could easily recreate him. What’s more they could adjust the dopamine sliders and make him happier.

Tim Burton and Helena Bonham-Carter

Helena and Tim were a fixture of the early 2000s, with Tim pushing the boundaries of pointless CGI and Helena tagging along in her zany goth style. It would be nice to see a happy ending for them. She definitely loved him or she would never have agreed to be a chimp in his films.

Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie

The 00s loved this, so why couldn’t the love triangle have carried on longer? Brad keeping up a pretence of marriage with Jen while rushing off to seductress Ange every spare moment, his excuses increasingly flimsy, George Clooney covering for him? That could have been kept going for 20 years, surely? For us?