On minor parties

As the three big political parties will inevitably dominate the mainstream media during this general election campaign, I thought it would be a good idea to use this blog to alert voters to some of the smaller alternatives.

They don't come much smaller than The Cornish Democrats whose policy objectives appear to include the return of ITV's Gus Honeybun to our television screens and dubbing

"versions of iconicTV series ranging from Postman Pat to Thunderbirds in Cornish."

There are other policies, including:

"We maintain that the Cornish people should be recognised for their unique identity amongst the peoples of Britain and that Cornwall should therefore be accorded a special status within Great Britain."

Party leader is Jonathan Rogers. The Cornish Democrats were registered as a political party with the Electoral Commission in December. Jonathan's website says he plans to contest the St Ives constituency but I'm not aware of any other candidates anywhere else at this stage.

I'll try to include as many "minor" parties as possible as and when I get time.

BBC guidelines applied to Cornwall, define a "minor" party as a registered political party whose demonstrable level of political support, averaged over the 2009 council and European elections, and the 2005 general election, is less than two per cent. UKIP, The Green Party and Mebyon Kernow score more highly than this and are therefore being included as contributors to the BBC Radio Cornwall "Any Questions" programmes later this month which will each have an audience of 50.