Barry from Watford - the election in his own words

Fabulous! Another general election. I can hardly wait!  Of course I’ve seen them all come and go – Thatcher, Atlee, Disraeli, Alec Douglas Home, David Lloyd George, David Lloyd Centre, Freeman Hardy Willis, Pitt the Younger, Pitt the Older, Pitt the Bull Terrier.  

I’ve voted in this beauty pageant at every election and one thing is for certain – their arrival at the top seat has never quite resulted in the things that me and my wife Margaret were keen for them to provide – namely full employment,  an excellent health service,  a decent society which values love and respect….but above all, one of them ice creams with real caramel bits free to all pensioners any time they fancy one for pudding.

I’m not a political animal. Put it this way, Margaret and I spent longer discussing the merits of this year’s Britain’s Got Talent contestants than we have comparing the five main leaders. But since you ask – if I had to nail my colours to the mast and go for one of them I’d probably vote for that weird ‘hypno-dog’ in the next few weeks…

Now, at this point I should say to any prospective MPs who are reading this, and sensing a floating voter, that my support for any party decreases in direct comparison with the amount of literature they put through my door. Twice a day I’m hearing the slap of my letter box followed a plop on the doormat, (I use the word “plop” advisedly.) I race to the door hoping it’s something pleasant, only to discover I’ve been electioneered.  

A certain mayoress of my town has piled my doormat with the EC spam mountain in promises for the local elections. I won’t say which party she’s from but in the interests of impartiality, let’s just call her a…um, I dunno, ..a… ‘Diberal Lemocrat’.   

I have simply piled all the glossy pamplets outside our back door. In fact,  the pile has grown so high with every delivery that this morning I saw Ranulph Fiennes scaling the upper slopes. He was up there between Hyperbole Ridge and Exaggeration Crevasse. I told him he needn’t have worn his crampons – he could’ve reached the summit by holding the edges of a bin bag and hovering over all the ‘hot air’ they’re expelling.

I am also not mad on the television game show element to the debating. Did you see the live debates? It looked like they’d simply shortened the set of Take Me Out. No likey, Paddy. Seriously! No flippin’ likey! 
I wish job interviews for the rest of us could be like that. Stand at a podium and give your potential employers no more than your slogans and catchphrases. ‘I’m Barry St Michael and I’d be ideal for this lollipop man post because I am determined to reduce the deficit between my massive beer consumption and what my wife says we can afford.’  

And to the day itself. Margaret and I will get to the polling station early to cast our vote. No doubt there will be a flock of tellers asking me how I voted. I always give them the same answer – ‘How did I vote? As I always do, mate…with a sigh, a shake of my head and a big naively hopeful cross in one of the boxes’.

Barry’s Bingo Election Special is on Thursday, May 7 at 7pm at the 100 Club 100 Oxford Street, Soho, W1D 1LL. Details: www.wegottickets.com/event/316887
 

Or catch Barry and Angelos Epithemiou on May 26 at The Guanabara Club, Covent Garden. Details: live.barryandangelos.com