Fictional character Walter Mitty has announced a surprise bid for the leadership of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), challenging current incumbent Paul “I neva sed dat” Nuttall.
Mitty, who first appeared in a 1930s short story by American cartoonist, author, humorist and satirist James Thurbur, doesn’t actually exist but is adamant that his lack of corporeal substance poses no drawback to leading UKIP.
“I’m the perfect fit,” he told Rochdale Herald. “This is a party currently led by a man whose grasp of reality is so vague he doesn’t even know where he lives, and continually makes the most outrageous claims about his past,” he added, referring to the recent claims by Nuttall that he lives in Stoke-on-Trent where he is the UKIP candidate in a by-election, that he had survived the sinking of the Titanic, twice, and had personally liberated the Pacific island of Iwo Jima during the Second World War.
Claims which when proved false, led to him being forced to resign from the post of Archbishop of Canterbury.
Mitty’s attempted putsch on the UKIP leadership is unlikely to be straightforward with other candidates also indicating an interest.
Fictional Peruvian ursine star of children’s fiction Paddington Bear has also indicated that he may throw his volumous hat into the ring telling The Rochdale Herald sister paper the Andean Observer he didn’t see being an illegal immigrant from South America, a non human or apparently being under voting age as being barriers any more than his own fictional status.
“Let’s face it the party is currently led by a Squirrel Nutkins, a serial spouter of utter nonsense, who only got the job after Mrs Tiggy Winkle decided she couldn’t stand the pace, who in turn was appointed because Toad of Toad Hall decided he’d rather spend time ranting on the radio and hanging out with his orange faced chum,” he said.
” I may be fictitious and I may have arrived in this country under dubious circumstances, but at least I’ve been consistently believable since the 1960s,” he said.
Also believed to be interested in the job is long running fictional TV sci-fi character Dr Who, who equally sees not being entirely human as being no barrier to a career in far right UK politics.
“If the tweeted opinions of most UKIP supporters are anything to go by simple humanity isn’t high on the list of qualities they respect or require in a leader,” he said.
“And anyway, in the event that I get caught talking out of my Tardis I can simply regenerate and appear to be someone entirely different. It’s not as if they’ll ever notice,” he added.
