Not sure how this got past me until today, but a week or so ago, the good people of Hartlepool, England elected a man in a monkey suit as mayor. No foolin', he campaigned in the monkey suit and everything. He was, until elected, the mascot for the local soccer team.
Most startling for Americans is probably the fact that, until recently, most people in the United Kingdom did not get to elect their own mayors. His victory actually sparked bitter comments from a member of the British Labour party (the rough equivalent of America's Democratic Party) saying it indicated that allowing people to elect their own mayors might have been a mistake--this is apparently something new for the British.
My take: his main platform was "free bananas for schoolchildren." This is not--by a long shot--the dumbest political proposal I've heard in the last few years. I think the good people of Minnesota should consider drafting him to be their new mayor, once they tire of Jesse Ventura's antics.
The nation that brought us Monty Python has a long tradition of eccentric politicians (and I'm not talking about Dame Thatcher). The pope of British political daffiness was the late Screaming Lord Sutch, pop muscian and head of the Monster Raving Loony Party. His proposal to institute cat licensing was seriously considered by some local councils in the early '70's! For more information check out the following URLs:
http://elvispelvis.com/lordsutch.htm
http://www.omrlp.com/
Truely tremendous blog!