Lord Sutch; Colorful Head of Britain’s Loony Party Ran for Parliament 40 Times

Screaming Lord Sutch, founder of Britain’s irreverent Monster Raving Loony Party and his country’s longest-serving political leader, has died.

He was 58 and was found dead Wednesday at his London home, an apparent suicide by hanging.

Sutch, who founded the Loony Party in 1963, was said to have suffered for years from depression, a condition that grew worse after the recent deaths of his mother and his dog.

He also was distressed by the Loonies’ inability to afford the $7,500 deposit to run candidates in last week’s European Parliament elections, pronouncing the situation “a bad day for Loonies . . . a sad day for democracy.”

Sutch was responsible for the stiff rise in registration fees for British candidates--perhaps the biggest change he brought about in more than three decades of adding merriment to the British political scene.

The government raised the fees in 1985 to discourage zanies like David Sutch, who legally added “Lord” to his name at the outset of his colorful political career. But the strategy backfired: Sutch ran for election more than 40 times, garnering a spot in the Guinness Book of Records for his number of runs as a wannabe member of Parliament.

He never won, but he was never dull. He could ask the pointed question, such as “Why is there only one Monopolies Commission?” He was a font of proposals: Joggers and the unemployed should be forced to power a gigantic treadmill to generate cheap electricity. January and February should be banned to shorten winter. Fish should be bred in a European wine lake so they could be caught already pickled.

One of his ideas--all-day pubs--caught on.

“Vote for insanity--You know it makes sense!” was his campaign slogan. An animal-skin-print top hat, gold lame suit and gold megaphone were his trademarks.

Born David Edward Sutch, he was the only child of a policeman who was killed during World War II. Sutch worked as a plumber for a time, then discovered rock ‘n’ roll. As a member of a rock group called the Savages, he became a pop star, keen on theatrics and wild props. His nickname became “Lord,” inspired by the fur-lined crash helmet--studded with baubles to resemble a crown--that he wore during his early days as a performer.

His most successful album in Britain was “Draculoid Till the Following Night” in 1962. An early 1970s release, “Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends,” was a minor success in the United States. (In 1998, however, the album was voted worst rock LP of all time by record buyers on both sides of the Atlantic.)

In 1964 he threw his leopard skin hat into the political ring when he announced he would stand for Parliament against Harold Wilson in the Huyton district, but his nomination papers were rejected. His platform? Fight discrimination against long hair and promote knighthood for the Beatles.

In 1966 he qualified to run from Huyton, but he polled only 585 votes. He would be rejected by voters another 38 times over the next 30 years, although by the 1980s he generally finished ahead of other fringe candidates. In 1984, he proposed himself and his dog Splodge as candidates for Parliament, which got him disqualified.

Only one Loony Party candidate has ever emerged the victor in a race--Alan Hope, who ran unopposed for mayor of Ashburton in southwest England in 1987.

Hope, a friend of Sutch since the 1950s, told the London Daily Telegraph that the recent deaths of Sutch’s Yorkshire terrier, Rosie, and his mother, Nancy, contributed to the depression that apparently led him to take his own life.

His death was mourned by some of Britain’s top leaders. Harry Greenway, former member of Parliament for the Conservative Party, said Sutch “brought gaiety to politics [and] pricked the pomposity of politicians.” A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said British elections will never be quite the same without him.

Sutch never married but is survived by a son, Tristan Lord Gwynne Sutch.