Rainbow George Weiss

Rainbow George Weiss (born 13 October 1940), son of a diamond merchant, is a fringe UK political candidate who stood in 13 constituencies in the 2005 General Election.

He founded his own parties from the proceeds of the sale of a house in Hampstead, North London which he moved into in 1969 but stopped paying rent in 1984; remaining there as a squatter. He made a profit of £710,000 on the sale of the house in 2004 after HM Land Registry awarded him ownership of the property. He is proposing a "preferendum" where voters choose individual policies from amongst those offered by each of the major parties.

He was for many years the neighbour of comedian Peter Cook, and released an album of some of his personal home recordings featuring Cook under the title Over At Rainbows after Cook died in 1995. The recordings feature a few of the phone conversations between LBC radio's Clive Bull and Peter Cook under the guise of a Norwegian fisherman called Sven, many of which were made from Weiss's home.

In July 2006, Weiss disclosed on the Clive Bull radio show that he had about £50,000 remaining from the windfall; however, by February 2007 he was giving the more ambiguous description of "somewhere under £50,000". Also during February of that year, Weiss announced he was standing as a candidate in the Belfast by-elections and was subsequently banned from appearing on the Clive Bull show until they were over.

Weiss founded his own political party, the Vote For Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket, and first stood for the European Parliament in 1994 in the London Central constituency. He stood in the 2001 General Election for the Belfast East constituency where he won a total of 91 votes (0.2% of those cast). Weiss has spent considerable time and money organising an unofficial postal referendum to ask the people of Belfast whether they would like the city to be renamed "Best City", a name inspired by the late Northern Ireland football player George Best. With the celebrity endorsement of former professional snooker player Alex Higgins, the referendum took place in 2006 at an estimated cost (to Weiss) of £100,000. Only 2000 votes were returned, which means George effectively paid £50 for each vote he got.

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