It’s tough at the desktop. Indeed, there’s nowhere to run when you’ve been dancing in the street. Late in 2005 the former Motown star Martha Reeves ran for and won a seat on the Detroit City Council. To achieve this she unveiled a plan to run for the ‘youth of the city’, the contents of which included a radical review of policing within the neighbourhood. One of her ideas was to boost the local economy by erecting a series of downtown statues to Motown figures such as Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder. During her term of office she proved instrumental in getting an area highway renamed as Berry Gordy Jr.Boulevard”. Unfortunately, along the way Martha found herself faced with federal and state tax liens amounting to more than $210,000. It didn’t help when the press ran a quote where she stated that her position was simply a ‘second job’. Voters in a non partisan ballot have since rejected a second term for the personality councillor. In response, Ms. Martha has issued a statement saying that she intends to concentrate on her singing career.
The idea of pop stars dabbling in politics is hardly new. Mario Delagarde, who once played bass with Johnny Otis, was almost certainly the first ‘rock’ personage to pay the price for his radical beliefs. Delagarde was known for holding seminars on Marxism-Leninism and dialectics on the band bus, and he ultimately perished fighting President Fulgencio Batista in Cuba during the late fifties. Then there was the case of Dean Reed, a minor league rock n roller who was dubbed ‘The Red Elvis’. Reed spent a good deal of his short life in South America, followed by a migration to Russia where he unleashed left-wing protests against U.S. foreign policy to anyone who would listen. He died under mysterious circumstances in 1986 when his body was found in an East Berlin lake.
Over the decades, the UK has never been short of radically-minded musicians. Ask any man or woman in the street which pop singer comes to mind through politics, and the reply will almost certainly be Bono or Bob Geldof. At least Bono has had the courage to admit that many people cannot stand a ‘rock star with a cause’. When he spoke at a Labour Party conference the U2 singer said, “I know what this looks like, a rock star standing up here shouting imperatives others have to fulfill. But that’s what we rock stars do. Rock stars get to wave flags, shout at the barricades, and escape to the South of France. We’re unaccountable”. Bob Geldof of course, is another aspirant altogether. From Live Aid to fighting Aids in Africa, the Boomtown Rats’ frontman has sought to heal more wounds than a hyperactive ward sister. In December 2005, he agreed to give advice on global poverty to the Conservative Party. Stating that he was uninterested in party politics, young Bob said that he would continue to ’shake hands with the devil on my left and the devil on my right,’ in order to achieve results: An accurate piece of self-assumption if ever there was one.
The daddy of them all though, has to be the one and only Screamin’ Lord Sutch. In 1963 his Lordship represented the National Teenage Party when he contested a by-election in Stratford-upon-Avon caused by the resignation of John Profumo. Having gained 208 votes Sutch was sufficiently encouraged to enter the 1964 General Election, and he stood in Harold Wilson’s Huyton constituency. Mock ye not, because on that occasion he polled a respectable 518 votes. In 1983, after taking time off to meet Elvis Presley and make a few records, he founded the Official Monster Raving Loony Party with a cry of – ‘We shall fight them on the benches’. The slogan, ‘Vote For Insanity – You Know It Makes Sense’, was ultimately adopted as the party’s battle cry. Yes folks, the publicity machine was now kicking in.
Sartorially elegant in a leopard skin jacket and spangled top hat, Sutch stood out a mile from his traditionally garbed rivals. His personal zenith (which he described as ‘an horrendous experience’) came when he campaigned in Margaret Thatcher’s Finchley constituency. Sutch turned up on the day of the election with a giant tin opener, which he announced was to prise open the ‘Iron Lady’. In the 1990’s, a TV campaign for Heineken Pilsner featured a strapline that claimed, “Only Heineken can do this”. Lord Sutch could be seen in one of the commercials, standing outside 10 Downing Street after becoming Prime Minister. There were other grandiose moments too. Once when Sutch arrived in Mick Jagger’s hotel room uninvited, the Stones’ singer captured the moment by adding the line – “Then in flies a guy who’s all dressed up like a Union Jack” to ‘Get Off of My Cloud’.
Although his Screamin’ness is sadly no longer with us, the Official Monster Raving Loony Party is still very much in business. With a General Election on the horizon, the party’s vote-winning manifesto has been drawn up to outline a wide range of life-changing policies. First of all they intend to issue a 99p coin, so as to save on change. They also plan to replace the House of Lords with the House of Cards, in order to make it easier for the Government to deal with. And finally, in recognition of Political Correctness, the OMRLP has stated that the Isle of Wight should be renamed “The Isle of Mixed Races and Cultures, Located off the Coast of Britain”. All well and good you might think. But if we are speaking in terms of equality, then surely the Monster Raving Loony Party manifesto should be altered to read ‘personifesto’.
