Labour MP Says Even a ‘Raving Alcoholic Sex Pedophile’ Could Win the Great Grimsby Seat

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

2015 has been a quiet year for raving alcoholic sex pedophiles, all told. It's good, then, that outgoing Labour MP Austin Mitchell is bringing them back to the table like a lukewarm side dish of chips—a lukewarm side of chips that wears curiously stained jogging bottoms and tries to give brandy to nine-year-olds.

And so to Grimsby, where Labour are uncharacteristically tub-thumping and confident about retaining a seat they have held since 1945. Or at least veteran Labour MP Austin Mitchell is, seeing as he's held the Great Grimsby seat since 1977 and is stepping down at this election, so can do and say exactly whatever the fuck he wants right now.

"I don't think there is a problem in Grimsby," Mitchell told the Independent on Sunday yesterday. "There will certainly be a rise in the UKIP vote now that they have a councillor and did quite well in the European elections. But when it comes down to it their vote isn't concentrated enough to win any seats."

"There is no chance we'll lose Grimsby, even if we select a raving alcoholic sex pedophile we wouldn't lose Grimsby".

Some questions:

• What is the key difference between a "sex pedophile" and a straight-up vanilla "pedophile"? It feels that a "sex pedophile" is somehow worse, but there's not really any government-issue Pedo Severity Spectrum to refer to in these cases, so any and all advice gratefully received. Maybe that was an insert sheet in that Westminster Pedophile Dossier that keeps mysteriously going missing.
• Would a raving alcoholic sex pedophile really want to stand for Labour? Putting myself in the pissed-in boots of a raving alcoholic sex pedophile for a moment, I think I'd be more likely to run on a single-issue ticket—more legislation to somehow make Bell's whiskey even cheaper and worse, say—than an entire manifesto, and therefore would run independently, between the frequent blackout episodes where I wake up on a park bench after having extravagantly shat myself.
• Why would you, in any world, think this is a good thing to say?

UKIP candidate Victoria Ayling—who stood for the Conservatives against Mitchell in the 2010 elections and only lost out by 714 votes—took exception to being told she couldn't beat a chimeric yet raging alcoholic sex pedophile at politics, saying: "It's insulting to the great people of Great Grimsby. And it's exactly the sort of 'take them for granted' attitude that is turning people away from the establishment parties.

"Austin Mitchell has been a respected constituency MP but he's assuming that people don't think very carefully about how they vote. People do think very carefully and I don't like Mr Mitchell insulting the people of Grimsby."

For her part, Labour candidate Melanie Onn said the comments were "awful," although didn't explicitly say, 'I'm not a raging alcoholic sex pedophile, though, I'm just a normal person,' which any logical mind would see as an admission of guilt.

Labour are currently polling 1.2 percent ahead of the Conservatives, while Ayling's UKIP campaign is seen as a sort of acid test for UKIP in the north of England 1: in areas less visibly affected by immigration, can UKIP's media-friendly brand of I'm-only-joshing-with-you-you-gypsy-fucker xenophobia swing any votes?

For the meantime, it looks like it's a "no": UKIP are currently polling at 6.2 percent, just ahead of the BNP's 4.6 percent, so even if Grimsby's most prejudiced citizens got organized enough to vote for one party ahead of another, they'd still make up about half of a Lib Dem.

Still, if Labour lose the general election as a whole, installing a raft of raging alcoholic sex pedophile candidates could help them win it next time around. Heck, it worked for the Tories in the 80s! ALLEGEDLY!!!!!!

Follow Joel on Twitter.

1. "But Grimsby isn't in the north it's in the east Midlands! Know ur geography u London-centric VICE ponce media wankEr!" — you, just getting furious in the comments. Grimsby is in the north.↩