More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
Elections wouldn't be elections without Britain's more zanier characters.
And they don't come much crazier than Mad Mike Young from the Isle of Sheppey.
Mike, who gives his age as 68-and-a-quarter, was once again out on his bike and megaphone campaigning for the Official Monster Raving Loony Party for Thursday's General Election.
After supping a few beers at the Yellow Bricks micropub for his "victory party" he turned up at the count at the Swallows Leisure Centre in Sittingbourne to discover if he had won. He ended up second-to-last polling 404 and taking a 0.78% share of the 51,497 total votes.
Like all his other five elections, he turned up with his battered black briefcase bulging with bananas to hand out to fellow candidates.
During the wait for the result Mike, who lives in the 'Nut House' at Minster gave a video interview which has since been shared widely on Twitter.
In the interview he described the atmosphere at the count as "electric," when it clearly wasn't, much to the delight of independent candidates Monique Bonney and Lee McCall who were watching from the sidelines.
Mike added: "This is my sixth general election. It's the double hat-trick. For me it's tremendous fun and I enjoy every second."
Asked about what might lay in store for British politics after Boris Johnson's resounding victory he said: "We should look to the future because it's only just begun. And remember, the youth are the future of tomorrow."
An extract from the one-minute interview is now becoming a Twitter favourite.
Retired "mad scientist" Mike (he had worked for Abbott Laboratories at Queenborough) had earlier suggested in his "manic-festo" that free canned laughter should be dispensed on the NHS and school class sizes could be reduced by making children sit closer together.
On the environment he promised: "I pledge to superglue myself to the cliffs of Sheppey in protest at the sea eroding our precious Island."
He also suggested building a "space port" at Rushenden in place of a marina to service the International Space Station with supplies of astronauts and bananas. But he was left stunned when there were already real plans in Scotland to do exactly the same thing. Well, perhaps not the bananas.
On Brexit he said: "The Loony party originally proposed that there should have been three choices in the referendum: in, out or shake it all about. Undeniably, the third choice has come true."
Today (Saturday) the grandad was back at his other job, sitting in for Father Christmas on the Santa Special train between Sheerness and Sittingbourne.
Mad Mike is also something of a sportsman, having won Sheppey's now defunct World Walking The Plank Championships three times, once by jumping off on a pogo stick, once on his bike and once with his hair on fire.
