The latest UK general election was full of surprising winners and losers, and regardless of your political beliefs and feelings towards the results, there’s one candidate that has undoubtedly been creeping their way onto our radar and they are someone that we can all bond over…
And that candidate, is Lord Buckethead.
Oh, England, you are home to some beautifully strange people, or as is the case here, space lords.
But just who is Lord Buckethead? What is his political inclination? What was in his manifesto? Does he have a Twitter? And most importantly, can he Dab?
Starting from the top, here is your need-to-know guide on the famous Lord Buckethead:
Who even is Lord Buckethead? and Why did Lord Buckethead run in Maidenhead?
Well, according to his website buckethead4maidenhead.com, Lord Buckethead is a space lord who ran to be the independent Member of Parliament for Maidenhead in this 2017 UK General Election. He has stood against two previous Conservative Prime Ministers, Margaret Thatcher in Finchley in 1987 and John Major in Huntingdon in 1992.
After hearing public cries for effective opposition, Lord Buckethead returned after a 25-year hiatus to take on Theresa May in Maidenhead. On his website, he says, ‘If Mrs May cannot even defend her own social care policies just days after they are launched, how can she possibly cope against a Space Lord?
But, speaking seriously for a brief moment, Lord Buckethead is a British satirical political candidate representing the Gremloids, a frivolous political party, and his name and costume is derived from the 1984 cult sci-fi comedy Hyperspace which was created by Todd Durham.
What is in Lord Buckethead's manifesto? What are Lord Buckethead's policies?
Lord Buckethead describes his manifesto as ‘an ambitious and progressive programme not only for the good Earthlings of a certain Berkshire conurbation, but for the entirety of your nation. It is a suite of policies that have been fully costed and which marries fiscal responsibility with an interest in lasers.’ And really, who hasn’t got at least a slight interest in lasers?
In his strong, yet ‘not entirely stable’ 2017 manifesto, Lord Buckethead’s galaxy inclusive mission includes these topics up for political consideration:
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The Abolition of the Lords (except himself, of course)
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No third runway to be built at Heathrow: where we’re going we don’t need runways (this sounds a lot like Doc at the end of Back To The Future, so I can only hope that where we’re going also has flying DeLorean’s and time machines)
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Ceefax to be brought back immediately, with the Oracle and other Teletext services to be rolled out by the next Parliament (admittedly, I did have to Google what Teletext was as it’s all just a very vague and very distant memory for someone born in 1994, but there’s no harm in bringing it back, right?)
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A moratorium until 2022 on whether Birmingham should be converted into a starbase (and speaking as someone from Birmingham, I fully support the notion of the city becoming an intergalactic star base).
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New voting age limit of 16 to be introduced. New voting age limit of 80 to be introduced too (a slightly controversial proposition, but considering the young/old voting dichotomy it would be interesting to see how this would affect future election results)
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Stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Start buying lasers from Lord Buckethead (a somewhat self-motivated policy, but you have to admire his honesty)
Does Lord Buckethead have Twitter?
Yes, @lordbuckethead, and it’s glorious. Here are just a few of his best tweets
Lord Buckethead’s most iconic moments of this election:
Lord buckethead's dab:
After winning 249 votes, a personal best for Lord Buckethead, he decided to celebrate the only way you can in 2017 and did a quick dab. The now iconic moment can be seen in this video at 0:07 seconds in. Just take it all in. Lord Buckethead, on stage next to Theresa May, who is wearing a look of pure discontent, whilst someone with a bucket on their head dabbing at his announcement that they received 249 votes in the general election.
Lord Buckethead on John Oliver
Another impressive feat for Lord Buckethead is that he’s gained fans from across the globe. For instance, on a recent episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Oliver introduced American viewers to Lord Buckethead and said, ‘in eight days, the UK is set to walk into a negotiation with no real leverage, no significant political mandate, and no coherent plan, I don’t really have a solution to that, but I do have a proposal for Theresa May,’ he went on to say, ‘send someone that there is no way they would expect? I’m talking about someone bold, unafraid to call it how it is. Someone with a firm, leather-clad grasp of the issues. Someone with a bucket-list of demands and an honest, slightly muffled voice. That’s right, I’m talking about the intergalactic space lord himself.”
Lord Buckethead and Elmo
Unsurprisingly, Lord Buckethead wasn’t the only unorthodox candidate to be running as a prospective independent member of parliament this election, as the UK has a longstanding and peculiar tradition of generating strange candidates each election. This year in Maidenhead, for example, Lord Buckethead also shared the stage with Elmo and Howling ‘Laud’ Hope of the Monster Raving Loony Party. The result was this iconic picture:
Whilst you can decide for yourself whether or not Lord Buckethead should be a serious political contender, it's interesting to consider why it is that we so often see strange candidates putting themselves forward each election. Maybe it's simply for a light bit of comic relief during what can be a long and stressful period of campaigning, or maybe it's to create a satirical point of comparison to highlight how detached and bizarre many serious political candidates are compared to the general public.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.