Sutch era Starting in 1963, David Sutch, head of the rock group
Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, stood in British parliamentary elections under a range of party names, initially as the
National Teenage Party candidate. At that time, the minimum voting age was 21. The party's name was intended to highlight what Sutch and others viewed as hypocrisy, since teenagers were unable to vote because of their supposed immaturity while the adults running the country were involved in scandals such as the
Profumo affair. After being shot during a mugging attempt while living in the United States, Sutch returned to Britain (and to politics) during the 1980s. The Raving Loony name first appeared at the
Bermondsey by-election of 1983. A similar concept had appeared earlier in the
Election Night Special sketch on the television comedy series ''
Monty Python's Flying Circus, in which the Silly and Sensible parties competed; and a similar skit by The Goodies'', in which
Graeme Garden stood as a Science Loony. A Science Fiction Looney candidate had also competed in the
1976 Cambridge by-election. Two others were important in the formation of the OMRLP: John Desmond Dougrez-Lewis stood in the
Crosby by-election of 1981 (won by the
Social Democratic Party's co-founder
Shirley Williams); and Dougrez-Lewis stood in the by-election as
Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel, taken from the Election Night Special Monty Python sketch. He had changed his name by
deed poll from John Desmond Lewis, on behalf of the
Cambridge University Raving Loony Society (Curls), an "anti-political party" and charity fundraising group formed largely as a fun counter-response to increasingly polarised student politics in Cambridge. It was responsible for a number of fun stunts. Its
Oxford University equivalents were the "Oxford Raving Lunatics". Dougrez-Lewis became Sutch's agent at the notorious Bermondsey by-election, where the OMRLP banner was first officially unfurled. Reverting to his original name, Dougrez-Lewis stood for the new party in Cambridge in the
1983 general election. Another serial offbeat by-election candidate was Commander
Bill Boaks, a retired World War II hero who took part in sinking the
Bismarck. Boaks campaigned and stood for election for over 30 years on limited funds, always on the issue of
road safety. Boaks proved influential on Sutch's direction as the leading anti-politician: "It's the ones who ''don't'' vote you really want, because they're the ones who think." Boaks thought that increased traffic and more roads would cause problems, and he addressed road safety with flamboyant campaigning and a variety of tactics, including
private prosecution of public figures who escaped public prosecution for
drunk driving. He successfully campaigned with Sutch and others to pedestrianise London's
Carnaby Street. While recovering from being struck by a motorcycle, Boaks was one of Sutch's
counting agents at Bermondsey in 1983. Following Boaks's death, popular opinion towards road safety has become closer to his views. Screaming Lord Sutch died by suicide on 16 June 1999 while suffering from clinical depression after his mother, Annie, died in 1998. A biography of Sutch,
The Man Who Was Screaming Lord Sutch (by Graham Sharpe, the media relations manager of bookmaker
William Hill), was published in April 2005, describing what remained of the party as "wannabes, never-would-bes and some bloody-well-shouldn't-bes".
Post-Sutch Sutch's funeral – organised by his friend, the session drummer and former
Rolling Stones member
Carlo Little – was attended by members of the OMRLP and
Raving Loony Green Giant Party, including Stuart Hughes, who with Freddie Zapp brought along a huge floral tribute shaped as an OMRLP rosette. The running of the OMRLP fell to
Alan "Howling Laud" Hope and his cat,
Catmando, who were the joint winners of the 1999 membership ballot for the replacement for Sutch. Although Hope took over as party leader after Sutch's death, the real day-to-day running of the party has always been done by other party members. The OMRLP fielded 15 candidates in the
2001 general election, at which it had its best general election results to date. The manifesto, entitled
The Manicfesto, for the
2005 general election featured the major commitment of their long held pledge to abolish income tax, citing as always that it was only meant to be a temporary measure during the Napoleonic Wars. Also included was another old staple, the "Putting Parliament on Wheels" idea of having Parliament sit throughout the country rather than solely in Londonwith special emphasis this time in its creation negating the need for national/regional assemblies. The conference was held in Blackpool in 2017. The party's last elected representative was R. U. Seerius (formerly Jon Brewer) on the eleven-member Sawley Parish Council in Derbyshire, first elected (uncontested) in 2005. He was no longer a member as of May 2007, having failed to appear at no fewer than 11 statutory meetings during his time in office, due to illness. In March 2007, the party's vice-president Melodie "Boney Maroney" Staniforth left the party, although she ran in the Kirklees election in April 2007. The OMRLP succeeded in standing in the two by-elections of 19 July 2007 in
Sedgefield and
Ealing Southall, but again achieving derisory results: Alan Hope acquiring 129 votes (0.46%) and John Cartwright taking 188 (0.51%), beating the English Democrats but coming behind the
Christian Party of the Reverend
George Hargreaves and David Braid. In recognition that reforms were needed,
Peter 'T.C.' Owen was moved from the honorary position of party chairman to that of deputy leader (and thus effective day-to-day leader) of the OMRLP, while Anthony "The Jersey Flyer" Blyth (owner of the Ommaroo Hotel and a member of the
Jersey Heritage Trust) took over Owen's role. Owen is one of four Raving Loonies to have scored more than 1,000 votes in an election (he polled 2,859 votes in the
1994 European elections). On 31 May 2017, Hope was interviewed by
Andrew Neil on the BBC's
Daily Politics programme. ==Electoral performance==