Official Monster Raving Loony Party
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Official Monster Raving Loony Party
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| Leader | Alan "Howling Laud" Hope |
| Founder | Screaming Lord Sutch |
| Founded | 1983 |
| Headquarters | 59 New Barn Close, Fleet, Hampshire, GU51 5HU |
| Membership | 1,434 |
| Ideology | Satire |
| Political position | "Sitting, facing forward" |
| Colours | Yellow and black |
| Parish councillors |
7 / 80,000
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| Website | |
| loonyparty |
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The Official Monster Raving Loony Party is a registered political party established in the United Kingdom in 1983 by the musician David Sutch, better known as "Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow" or simply "Screaming Lord Sutch". It is notable for its deliberately bizarre policies and it effectively exists to satirise British politics, and to offer itself as a poignant alternative for protest voters, especially in constituencies where the party holding the seat is unlikely to lose it and everyone else's vote would be quietly wasted.
Starting in 1963, David Sutch, head of Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, stood in British parliamentary elections under a range of party names, mainly as the National Teenage Party candidate. At that time the minimum voting age was 21. The party's name was intended to highlight what Sutch and others viewed as hypocrisy, since teenagers were unable to vote because of their supposed immaturity while the adults running the country were involved in scandals such as the Profumo Affair.
After being shot at during a mugging attempt whilst living in the United States, Sutch returned to Britain and to politics during the 1980s. The "Raving Loony" name first appeared at the Bermondsey by-election of 1983.
A similar concept had appeared earlier in the "Election Night Special" sketch on Monty Python's Flying Circus, in which the Silly and Sensible parties competed, and a similar skit by The Goodies, in which Graeme Garden stood as a "Science Loony". There had also been a "Science Fiction Looney" candidate competing in the 1976 Cambridge by-election.
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