Last night on the Jonathan Ross show, comedian Rufus Hound declared he plans to stand for the National Health Action Party in the forthcoming European Elections. He made it clear that this decision arose, not because he was commited to having a political career but because he felt that someone needed to take a stand againgst the dismantling of the NHS and when he looked around he realised that no one was. This is the statement he made on the show: “I think I’m going to run as an MEP (Member of European Parliament). I’m going to run for the NHA (National Health Action Party) because the NHS is being privatised. The NHA is run by doctors and they’re not people who want to be politicians. I don’t want to run as an MEP, I really don’t. I want to dick about with this man (Robert Lindsay) because that’s a lot more fun, but I’m looking around for who is stepping forward and telling people about it and nobody is.”

The appeal to vote for a party or for individuals who are willing to stand for causes that many people care about is clear, when the alternative is one of 5 parties, who many of us have become heartily disillusioned with. The rationale for the NHA party fighting the elections is: “A strong electoral result will put pressure on the Government to reverse its damaging reforms and exempt the NHS from the catastrophic EU/US Free Trade Agreement. The very survival of the NHS is at stake.” It is questionable if even having an MEP in each of our 12 regions would make any difference to the Free Trade agreement, but it would place the NHA as a reasonable comparator to the current standing of UKIP!

The challenge for the NHA, based on the information I have seen is that they appear to be targeting all of their so far declared energy at the London Region for this election. The news that Rufus is to stand in the election appears on their website in the same space that explains that he will stand in London and so too will Dr Louise Irvine, one of the founders of the NHA. Because of the electoral system used for the EU elections, if the party was to achieve a success in London with the first name on their list, it would be unthinkable for them to get a second person elected. How much better if they could spread their campaign more broadly and seek endorsement in some of the other 9 regions in England and Wales. Sadly the experience of a range of pseudo Independent Parties and Independent Candidates in previous European Elections does not auger well for the NHA Party unless there really is a major shift of attitude by voters. A seat at the EU seems to need around 200,000 votes depending on the region, that is a big number, but in England around 1.4M people work for the NHS. If that was spread evenly that would give 150,000 people or so in each region. If these workers were motivated to vote, they could get the NHA Party close to a seat, needing only a few hundred non NHS workers in each Parliamentary Constituency to tip them over the winning line.