Top 5

Snipe Top 5: Controversial civic elections

Mike Pollitt | Thursday 21 October, 2010 09:27

Today, voters are picking Tower Hamlets’ first directly elected mayor. Well, those that can be arsed are. It’s been a controversial run up to the medium-sized day, with the Labour party making like a banana and splitting down the middle amid rumours of backstabbing, betrayal and Ken Livingstone. To put this shenanigans in a bit of context, here are 5 other (mostly) local elections which were so scandalous that people actually took an interest in them.

Pitkin County Sheriff, Colorado, 1970
As the above-linked video shows, perhaps Hunter S Thompson’s finest hour. His platform was a mixture of idiotic attention seeking (tearing up the streets, renaming Aspen ‘Fat City’) and sensible, evidenced based social policy (legalisation of drugs). He shaved his head bald so he could refer to the crew-cutted conservative incumbent as “my long haired opponent”. He promised not to eat mescaline if elected. He lost. Perhaps it was for the best. A year later he took the trip which he would turn into Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

London Mayor, 2000
Not only was this election a novelty, bringing the concept of a mayor with GASP! a bit of power across the pond to the UK, but it was also jam packed with fascinating dodgepots. Snipe can’t afford a lawyer so will keep this brief: crafty Ken stood against the party which had nourished him, before returning to the bosom at a later date. It was all a bit Oedipal. Meanwhile, Tory candidate Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare (there’s a gag in that title somewhere…) was chucked out of the race so he could be convicted of perjury. Democracy at its best.

Dunny-on-the-Wold By-Election, the Regency
One of the classic televised elections, in which Blackadder acts as voter, returning officer, candidate’s agent and eminence grise. Brilliant satire on the rotten boroughs and of contemporary election coverage in the media. Lots of quotes here if you’re that way inclined.

Hartlepool Mayor, 2002
As most people know, the citizens of Hartlepool elected a grown man wearing a furry suit and calling himself H’angus the Monkey to their highest civic post in 2002. One wonders what Aristotle would have made of it. Probably a very long and dull treatise. Anyway, Stuart Drummond, the monkey at the typewriter in Hartlepool town hall, was recently re-elected for a third term. Which proves either that you don’t have to come from the political establishment to be a capable local politician, or that locally elected mayors are a complete waste of time.

American Presidential Election, 1876
Not a civic election, but then sometimes Top 5 writes cheques that Google search can’t cash. This is worth including anyway because it’s a good contender for the title of most controversial, corrupt and downright dishonourable election in Western political history. And that includes the Bush-Gore millennium mess up. Short version: both sides bribed, threatened and (in a very modern way) lawyered themselves silly. Hayes ended in the White House despite receiving 250,000 fewer votes than Tilden. An American farce.

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