Do you recognise this man?

You may remember him from a short-lived television sitcom a few years back, in which he played the self-important, somewhat sexist and xenophobic proprietor of a scruffy, down-at-heel pub. Yes, this is Al Murray the Pub Landlord.

Murray’s career has consisted primarily of wringing the same laughs out of the same jokes involving the same character, over and over again, year after year; if you’ve seen one of his television or stage shows, you have more or less seen them all. But Al Murray’s latest reinvention comes with a political twist – he is running for election as the Free United Kingdom Party (FUKP) candidate in South Thanet, the same constituency that UKIP leader Nigel Farage is contesting in the general election this May.

Murray’s apparent goal is to win a few more laughs (and a much needed publicity boost) by melding his stereotypical pub landlord persona with Nigel Farage’s pro-British populism, a process that is aided by their shared love of real ale; this is not complex, thought-provoking comedy.

The Spectator provides a taste of FUKP’s manifesto:

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