6 episodes
| Series | Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Repeated | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 01 | Lunatic Fringe | 20020811 | 20020814 | This edition looks at the `lunatic fringe'. |
| 01 | 02 | 20020818 | 20020821 | This programme looks at the single-issue candidates. | |
| 01 | 03 LAST | 20020825 | 20020828 | This programme looks at those whose sole purpose seems to be to bamboozle the voters. | |
| 02 | 01 | 20031228 | 20031231 | Matthew Parris investigates the candidates who enliven our elections, continually forfeiting their own money on lost deposits yet always coming back for more. | |
| 02 | 02 | matthew Parris Meets The Revolutionaries | 20040107 | In the second programme of this series, Matthew Parris meets the Revolutionaries: The Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist) doesn't have many members but has all the features of an elaborate organisation. It has a Central Committee, it holds Party Congresses, it has Party Cadres and it produces pamphlets and a newspaper. Its leader, Chris Coleman, is no wild eyed hothead, but a self-effacing elderly man in a suit. He's a supporter of North Korea. He's convinced the revolution will happen here, but admits he's not quite sure when. Rob Griffiths, General Secretary of the Communist Party, isn't making any predictions either. He's hoping the Communists will eventually play a part in some sort of broad left wing coalition government. The Communists think big - they want to see an end to American world dominance and to that end they're out campaigning hard in shopping centres round the country. Dave Nellist of the Socialist Party was once a Labour MP in Coventry but was thrown out of the party for being too left wing. But he had a big local following and nothing daunted, won a seat on the Council. There are now three Socialist Councillors in the City. Dave Nellist thinks things are moving the Socialist way. He thinks that if conditions are right and if he can get some of the big unions on board, there could be a "breakthrough" in the next two to five years. | |
| 02 | 03 LAST | 20040114 | In the third programme of this series, Matthew Parris once again visits the remoter shores of politics to report on more of the ""other candidates."" This week: religion. Matthew meets the leaders of parties as diverse as the Natural Law Party, which believes in Transcendental Meditation and yogic flying; the Islamic Party, which campaigns for Moslem economics, the abolition of debt and interest payments; and the Christian People's Alliance, which wants the support of non-Christians too. / At the last General Election there were more than three thousand candidates. Most of them had no chance whatsoever. They were going to lose their deposits, and they knew it. So why do they do it? What drives them on? In the third programme of this series, Matthew Parris once again visits the remoter shores of politics to report on more of the "other candidates." This week: religion. Matthew meets the leaders of parties as diverse as the Natural Law Party, which believes in Transcendental Meditation and yogic flying; the Islamic Party, which campaigns for Moslem economics, the abolition of debt and interest payments; and the Christian People's Alliance, which wants the support of non-Christians too. |