The deadline for General Election candidates has now passed and the line-up in all the constituencies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is now clear.
The Youngest Candidates
To stand for Parliament candidates have to be 18 years old on polling day.
The race was on this year to see who would be the youngest candidate.
However, none of these beat Luke Wilkins, who stood as an Independent in Erewash in 2010 at the age of 18 years 36 days, which I think made
him the youngest candidate since before the 1832 Reform Act. Before 1832 people stood at much younger ages, generally unrecorded.
— Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) November 18, 2019
The four contenders included two Liberal Democrats - Alex Wagner in Stafford and Ashley Ridley in East Worthing - an Independent, Hannah Locke, in Shrewsbury, and two Greens - Ani Goddard in Leicester West and Paris Hayes in Bolton West.
Proud to have Ani Goddard , eighteen, as our parl candidate in Leicester West! @LeicsGreenParty @LeicFoE @Chris_A_W @MagsLewisGreen pic.twitter.com/GEobJANYJU
— Leicester Greens (@LeicsGreenParty) November 5, 2019
Ridley told Sputnik he decided he wanted to be an MP when he was six.
He said: “No-one in Parliament at the moment truly represents the people and myself. I am not university educated. I don’t even have any A levels. Not only do I suffer from PTSD and depression but I have been dyslexic from a young age.”
Goddard is the baby of the group.
At Moreton we are passionate about empowering our students to make their voices heard, so we were delighted to hear OM Hannah Locke (2019) is standing for parliament in next month’s General Election.https://t.co/y6X75jmRYB pic.twitter.com/IiPFEC2G3B
— Moreton Hall (@MoretonHall) November 18, 2019
She will be just 18 years and 73 days old on 12 December - meaning that if elected she would become the first MP born after 9/11.
Look out for Locke in the future though.
Not satisfied with just being a General Election candidate, she has even produced her own online manifesto complete with a purple and green logo.
The Oldest Candidates
Quite possibly the oldest candidate is the sitting MP for Bolsover in Derbyshire - Dennis Skinner.
Skinner, known in Parliament as The Beast of Bolsover for his aggressive style in the Commons, will celebrate his 88th birthday in February and will no doubt hope to still be the Labour MP for a constituency which voted heavily in favour of Brexit.
No matter what happens, bar a miracle 'The Beast of Bolsover' will be 'Father of the house' next term! Go for it Dennis!! ✊🌹😎 pic.twitter.com/hJNLaFPTsD
— Duncan 🇵🇸 #ProPeople. (@BRUMSTOKIE) November 14, 2019
He has a majority of only 5,000 in a seat where the Brexit Party are also expected to take votes off Labour but if he holds on he will become the Father of the House, now that Ken Clarke has retired.
Blast From The Past
Neil Taylor is standing in Altrincham and Sale West for The Liberal Party, a party which ostensibly ceased to exist in 1988.
The Liberal Democrats have their own candidate in the constituency - Angela Smith, who was Labour MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge until earlier this year when she quit the party claiming it was institutionally anti-Semitic.
Number of GB seats being contested at #GE2019 (via @democlub):
— Number Cruncher Politics UK (@NCPoliticsUK) November 15, 2019
Conservative 631
Labour + Labour Co-op 631
Liberal Democrats 611
Green + Scottish Green 495
Brexit Party 276
Independent candidates 224
SNP 59
UKIP 42
Plaid Cymru 36
1/5
Altrincham and Sale West is currently a Conservative seat, held by Sir Graham Brady, the former chair of the 1922 Committee.
In 2017 he had a majority of 6,426 over Labour. That man again - Neil Taylor of the Liberal Party - got 299 votes.
The Liberal Party is fielding 19 candidates in all, including the Cities of London and Westminster where it will be up against Chuka Umunna, a former Labour MP who is the official Liberal Democrat candidate.
The Liberal Party, and its predecessor the Whigs, is one of the oldest parties in British politics and dominated large parts of the 19th century.
Its most famous leader was Gladstone, who was prime minister four times between 1868 and 1894.
Social Democratic Party
In 1988 the Liberals merged with the Social Democratic Party to form the Liberal Democrats.
But clearly there are people who still mourn the SDP - which split off from the Labour Party in 1981 - and it is putting up 19 candidates in a frankly pointless exercise in several constituencies.
Simon Breedon is the SDP candidate in Basildon and Billericay and Ian McLean is their man in Cynon Valley.
Old Labour MPs Who Refuse to Fade Away
Frank Field was a Labour MP for almost 40 years but he was always on the right of the party and never saw eye to eye with Jeremy Corbyn.
London-born Field, who is 77, resigned the Labour whip in 2018 and was expected to stand down at the election.
But he never married and has no family and politics has become his life so the prospect of retirement evidently terrified him.
So Field created his own party - the Birkenhead Social Justice Party - and will be their candidate on 12 December, standing against Mick Whitley, a Merseyside-born trade unionist, who was chosen as Labour’s PPC earlier this year.
Today I've been in the MoD lobbying for Cammell Laird. I argued that the fleet support ships, which are out for competition, should be viewed as part of the defence budget & not subjected to foreign competition. We'll know by Christmas whether this lobbying has been successful
— Frank Field (@frankfieldteam) November 5, 2019
Whitley is odds-on to win the seat back for Labour and send Field, an expert on welfare and pensions, into a reluctant retirement.
Two other former Labour MPs who were deselected by the party are standing as independents - Roger Godsiff in Birmingham Hall Green and Chris Williamson in Derby North - while Mike Gapes, who quit Labour earlier this year, will be representing The Independent Group for Change (TIG) in Ilford South, where he is expected to be flattened by Labour candidate Sam Tarry, a Corbyn loyalist.
Yorkshire Party
The Yorkshire Party is calling for more autonomy for the historic region in northern England.
It is putting up 28 candidates across the four “ridings” - including Ryan Williams in Barnsley Central, Andy Shead in Beverley and Holderness, Leon French in Doncaster Central and Owen Aspinall in Colne Valley.
Sinn Fein ‘Splitters’
In Northern Ireland a new party was formed in January this year when Peadar Tóibín, a member of parliament in the Republic of Ireland, quit Sinn Fein over the issue of abortion, which he strongly opposes.
7 Aontú candidates will be contesting the December election in the north.
— Aontú (@AontuIE) November 14, 2019
Dr Anne McCloskey - Foyle;
Paul Brady - South Down;
Monica Digney - West Belfast;
James Hope - West Tyrone;
Martin Kelly - Newry & Armagh;
Chris McHugh - South Belfast;
Dr Seán McNicholl - East Derry.
Aontú - which ironically means Unity in Gaelic - is putting up candidates against Sinn Fein MPs in republican strongholds like West Belfast, Foyle and Newry & Armagh, but is not expected to make a huge impact.
Aontú is also fielding a candidate, Chris McHugh, in South Belfast, a seat which will be hotly contested between the DUP’s Emma Little-Pengelly, the SDLP and the Alliance Party.
Welsh Nationalist Splitters
Plaid Cymru have been the flagbearers for Welsh nationalism for decades but this year a rival party, Gwlad Gwlad, will be standing in four constituencies.
Gwlad Gwlad is willing to combine policies from across the political spectrum – whether perceived as traditionally left wing, centrist or right wing - driven only by the best interests of #Wales.#indyWales #GE2019 #GeneralElection19 #Annibyniaeth #GwladGwlad pic.twitter.com/3wi7CcSOrA
— Gwlad Gwlad (@Gwlad_Gwlad) November 18, 2019
Gwyn Wigley Evans is standing in Montgomeryshire, Siân Caiach is standing in Cardiff Central, a seat Plaid Cymru deliberately pulled their candidate from as part of their Remain alliance with the Lib Dems and Greens. But Gwlad Gwlad are pro-Brexit.
The ‘Biblical Solution’ Party
While the Christian People's Alliance is putting up 29 candidates across the country, in the West Midlands another Christian group has formed the Yeshua Party - Yeshua being Hebrew for Jesus, in case you did not know - and has put up candidates in two constituencies.
Colin Rankine is standing in West Bromwich East and Thomas Braich in Birmingham Perry Barr.
On its website it says: “Yeshua is a political party which strives to facilitate the success of all people through implementing Biblical solutions.”
But what is the Biblical solution to Brexit or the conundrum of whether or not to build HS2?
Scroll down on their website and you find their official line: “There will be an enquiry into HS2 to compare it's viability with the rise in autonomous vehicles which could replace large infrastructure developments. Technology has moved on from trains and trams. Individuals will be treated as individuals for the common good.”
It's not clear if that is from the Old Testament or the New Testament.
Monster Raving Loonies
The Official Monster Raving Loony Party was founded in 1983 by Screaming Lord Sutch, who had been the founder and leader of the Sod’ em All Party and the National Teenage Party in the 1960s and the Go To Blazes Party in 1970.
But the OMRLP was a far more successful organisation than its predecessors and by 1990 it had become a household name and a cherished part of every General Election campaign.
Sutch, wearing an outlandish outfit and a huge top hat, would usually stand in the seat of the prime minister and his party’s policies were legendary.
He coined the slogan “vote for insanity” and his best result was at the 1994 Rotherham by-election where he got 1,114 votes, narrowly failing to save his deposit.
Sutch, who suffered from manic depression, hanged himself in 1999 but the party is still going strong under its current leader, Alan “Howling Laud” Hope.
It is putting up 24 candidates this year, including The Incredible Flying Brick in Jeremy Corbyn’s Islington North constituency, Lady Lily The Pink in Brecon and Radnorshire, Baron Von Thunderclap in Mid Sussex, Farmin Lord Dave in Denton and Reddish, Citizen Skwith in Brighton Pavilion, Sir Archibald Earl Eaton Stanton in Dewsbury, Baron Badger in Esher and Walton, and Just-John Sexton in Clacton.
Also standing for the OMRLF are 'Chinners' Chinnery in Kingston and Surbiton and the surprisingly ordinary-sounding Mark Beech in Aldridge-Brownhills.
The party’s wacky manifesto includes policies like making children sit closer together “to reduce class sizes” and “making terrorists wear bells and horns so we know where they are.”
And Some Even Stranger Candidates
In Blaydon, a Labour stronghold just outside Sunderland, the Space Navvies Party has put up a candidate - Lisabela Zxywhiddm Marschild.
According to the Who Can I Vote For? website Ms Marschild is a proponent of direct democracy and says she will only accept half of an MP’s £76,000 salary and will donate the rest to charity.
Ms Marschild stood at the 2017 election and garnered a grand total of 81 votes, compared to Labour’s Liz Twist who got 26,979.
Simon Rous is one of the Universal Good Party’s two members and is standing in the Norfolk constituency of Broadland, where the Tories have a majority of 15,000.
In an interview with a local newspaper Rous - who wants to abolish income tax and VAT - admits he has a “blue mountain” to climb.
In Broxtowe, Nottinghamshire, David Bishop is the official candidate of the Church of the Militant Elvis.
