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This Tory candidate's bizarre campaign video has to be seen to be believed

If Brian Butterfield was an MP...

This Tory candidate's bizarre campaign video has to be seen to be believed
06 June 2017

OK this is it. The election is over, call it now. The Tories have won.

It was looking for a while like Labour were mounting some sort of comeback – Jeremy Corbyn’s party have surged in the polls and a result which was supposed to be a sure thing was starting to look in doubt.

But that was before anyone caught wind of this campaign video by Tory candidate for East Yorkshire, Sir Greg Knight.

I know people say “watch it to the end” a lot, but seriously, watch it to the end.

Now I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking this is a sketch. It’s been ripped from The Day Today or something? Maybe this is Steve Coogan wearing another man’s skin? But no, this is a real campaign video. It’s a real thing.

It starts off regularly enough, Sir Greg strolls into the room and introduces himself, before parroting some very well memorised lines about why the good people of East Yorkshire should be voting for him.

“When you vote in an election you’re doing two things,” he says. “You’re choosing who is your local representative, but you’re also choosing a prime minister. I hope you’ll vote for me and support Theresa May. We want a strong and stable government, not a coalition of chaos led by Jeremy Corbyn.”

So far so standard, except then, well, you’ve seen what happens: 

“You’ll get accountability

With Conservative delivery

Make sure this time you get it right

Vote for Greg Knigh-igh-igh”

I’ve left the T off the end of Greg’s name there, because the video cuts out before they actually finish singing it. That is probably the least weird thing about this video though. Here are some questions I feel like I have to ask: Who is singing? Were they paid for this? Who decided to go for the whole ‘zooming in shakily on the sign’ thing? Who made that terrible Photoshop job at the end? Did Greg do it himself? Did Greg do all of this himself? Do the Conservative Party know this exists? How has this man been an MP on and off for more than 30 years?

"You'll get accountability..."
"With Conservative delivery..."

Yep, that’s right. More than 30 years – Sir Greg is actually an extremely well-seasoned and respected politician. I mean, he was literally knighted (for political service, not cinematography) in 2013.

He has held his seat in East Yorkshire since 2001, and is almost certainly going to win again this time.

He is also – and this is where shit gets even weirder – a very keen musician. He’s been described by singer Duffy as “a great drummer”, and is a founding member of MP4, the world’s only parliamentary rock band, along with  Kevin Brennan MP, Peter Wishart MP, and former MP Ian Cawsey.

Here’s one of their tracks:

Here is a photograph of Greg looking extremely stony-faced while holding up a taxidermied… something?

And here he is with a steak pie:

What does all of this tell us? Honestly, I have absolutely no idea. All I keep thinking about is this:

Thank god this is all over in three days.

UPDATE! THERE’S A WHOLE SONG! A WHOLE ACTUAL SONG! OH MY GOD!