In my local area the candidates for the County Council election are the usual suspects, Conservative, Labour, Green and an Independent but among the London mayoral candidates there is a character called Count Binface. He makes the proceedings less dull at least. Count Binface stood against Bo-Jo in 2019 (as did Elmo and Lord Buckethead).

The first jokey candidate I can remember was musician David 'Screaming Lord' Sutch with the National Teenage Party in the 1960s (though at the time teenagers could not vote).  He later became involved with The Monster Raving Loony Party. 

I was wondering - is this custom of having prankster candidates in elections limited to the UK or does it happen overseas? Perhaps Res Historians living outside the UK could enlighten me.

Well, in many elections past (I now see it only went from 1984 to 1999) we had The McGillicuddy Serious Party, which was a jokey party with its logo featuring a court jester and based on Scottish history. More can be seen about it on the wikipedia site or the rnz (Radio New Zealand, one of the most respected media in Aotearoa/New Zealand and really the only one I listen to apart from the TV news). It used to get about 1% of the vote.

In Germany there's Die Partei (die Partei für Arbeit, Rechtsstaat, Tierschutz, Elitenförderung und basisdemokratische Initiative (Party for Labour, Rule of Law, Animal Protection, Promotion of Elites and Grassroots Democratic Initiative). It was founded in 2004 by the editors of the German satirical magazine 'Titanic' and it's not really frivolous as its primary aim is to parody other mainstream parties (such as the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) to highlight problems in the political system. It has nevertheless voiced, albeit very much tongue-in-cheek - some fairly outlandish policies, such as suggesting that the Berlin Wall be rebuilt and East and West Germany be once again separate states; that a wall should be constructed completely encircling Switzerland to cut it off from the rest of "democratic" Europe; that Germany should declare war on Liechtenstein, probably for similar reasons; and that fracking should be extended to the rotund politicians Sigmar Gabriel and Peter Altmaier, to produce cheap gas.

Despite starting out as a purely satirical party intended to gather protest votes, Die PARTEI has since adopted some mainstream policy positions (generally they are pro-environmentalism, anti-authoritarian, pro-Europe, and generally left-leaning). In 2014 they actually won a seat in the European Parliament (with 0.6% of total German votes), when the candidate, with perhaps a nod at Nigel Farage's UKIP pointed out that they were "not the craziest party in the European Parliament". Then in the 2019 elections they gained a second MEP (with 2.4% of German votes).

Caro and MM - thanks for the information.  So, satirical candidates aren't such a British and eccentric phenomenon as I originally thought. I'd thought about looking for an article in French about Count Binface for my offering to the online Zoom French U3A meeting I'll attend but I decided to go with something about the caterpillar cake wars in the end.  We've had some very serious discussions lately (nothing wrong with that) but I thought I'd lighten the mood somewhat.