Rainbow George Weiss
Encyclopedia
Rainbow George Weiss son of a diamond merchant, is a fringe UK politician who stood in 13 constituencies at the 2005 General Election
.
He founded his own parties from the proceeds of the sale of a house in Hampstead
, North London
which he moved into in 1969 but stopped paying rent in 1984; remaining there as a squatter. He made a profit of £710,000 on the sale of the house in 2004 after HM Land Registry
awarded him ownership of the property. He is proposing a "preferendum" where voters choose individual policies from amongst those offered by each of the major parties.
He was for many years the neighbour of comedian Peter Cook
and released an album of some of his personal home recordings featuring Cook under the title Over At Rainbows after Cook's death in 1995. The recording features a few of the notorious phone conversations between LBC
radio's Clive Bull
and Peter Cook under the guise of a Norwegian fisherman called Sven, many of which were made from George's home.
In July 2006, Weiss disclosed on the Clive Bull radio show that he had about £50,000 remaining from the windfall, however by February 2007 he was giving the more ambiguous description of "somewhere under £50,000". Also during February of that year, Weiss announced he was standing as a candidate in the local Belfast by-elections and was subsequently banned from appearing on the Clive Bull show until they were over.
" he previously stood in the 2001 General Election
for the Belfast East
constituency where he won a total of 71 votes (0.2% of those cast). Despite this, Weiss has spent considerable time and money organising an unofficial postal referendum
to ask the people of Belfast whether they would like the city to be renamed "Best City", a name inspired by the late Northern Ireland
football player George Best
. With the celebrity endorsement of former professional snooker
player Alex Higgins
, the referendum took place in 2006 at an estimated cost (to Weiss himself) of £100,000. Only 2000 votes were returned, which means George effectively paid £50 for each vote he got.
Weiss was a candidate at the Brent East by-election
standing for the www.xat.org party in 2003, won by Liberal Democrat
Sarah Teather
, where he came bottom of a list of 16 candidates with just eleven votes. While this vote was considerably low. lower votes had previously been registered, for example in the 1988 by-election in Kensington
a candidate had polled just five votes. The Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket election record was also "surpassed" at the 2005 General election when British model
Catherine Taylor-Dawson stood for the party in Cardiff North
and achieved a single vote, though not from Taylor-Dawson herself, who wasn't eligible to vote in that constituency. Weiss himself set a new election record by simultaneously standing in 12 constituencies, beating Tom Keen of the Campaign for a More Prosperous Britain
's previous record of 10.
He stood in all four Belfast constituencies during the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly election
. Standing for his Make Politicians History Party, he came third last in South Belfast
and last in the three other constituencies with a total of 221 first preference votes. Sinn Féin
leader Gerry Adams
gave him a sixth preference vote in West Belfast
.
late at night, most often to speak to George Galloway
or whoever is presenting the 1-5am slot. However, he is usually referred to as "Rainbow George" when calling that station. Occasionally he phones BBC Radio Five Live
where he is treated as a normal caller and usually gets cut off as soon as he attempts to publicise his own political agenda.
On 13 August 2007 George phoned in and revealed his plans for London in the year 2020, which included turning the M25 into a "wonderwall" and London becoming "the party capital of the world", financed by "the bank of a zillion wonders" in which everyone would be an account holder and "the wonder" would be the base currency with a rate of one hundred "gasps" to the "wonder".
"Rainbow George" also calls BBC London 94.9 a lot at night time and sometimes in the daytime.
on Radio 2
in order to publicize his political agenda, inviting Brand
to take leadership of the party, (of which Brand was sceptical), and announcing an online petition requiring one million votes in order for the party to become recognized as a serious candidate in future elections.
During his appearance on the show on 14 June 2008, he told Brand that he had placed a bet on space ships appearing at the closing ceremony of the Olympic games in China, and invited him to take a one-third share in the bet, as well as to join him for some 'Boris Dancing' (named after mayor of London Boris Johnson) on Hampstead Heath
.
United Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
.
He founded his own parties from the proceeds of the sale of a house in Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, North London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
which he moved into in 1969 but stopped paying rent in 1984; remaining there as a squatter. He made a profit of £710,000 on the sale of the house in 2004 after HM Land Registry
HM Land Registry
Land Registry is a non-ministerial government department and executive agency of the Government of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1862 to register the ownership of land and property in England and Wales...
awarded him ownership of the property. He is proposing a "preferendum" where voters choose individual policies from amongst those offered by each of the major parties.
He was for many years the neighbour of comedian Peter Cook
Peter Cook
Peter Edward Cook was an English satirist, writer and comedian. An extremely influential figure in modern British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. He has been described by Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath," although Cook's...
and released an album of some of his personal home recordings featuring Cook under the title Over At Rainbows after Cook's death in 1995. The recording features a few of the notorious phone conversations between LBC
LBC
LBC Radio operates two London-based radio stations, with news and talk formats. LBC was Britain's first legal commercial Independent Local Radio station, providing a service of news and information to London. It began broadcasting on 8 October 1973, a week ahead of Capital Radio...
radio's Clive Bull
Clive Bull
Bull Clive is an award-winning radio talk show host, best known for presenting a late-night show on LBC 97.3 in London, England.-Background:...
and Peter Cook under the guise of a Norwegian fisherman called Sven, many of which were made from George's home.
In July 2006, Weiss disclosed on the Clive Bull radio show that he had about £50,000 remaining from the windfall, however by February 2007 he was giving the more ambiguous description of "somewhere under £50,000". Also during February of that year, Weiss announced he was standing as a candidate in the local Belfast by-elections and was subsequently banned from appearing on the Clive Bull show until they were over.
Politics
Founding his own political party, the "Vote For Yourself Rainbow Dream TicketVote For Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket
Make Politicians History was a minor United Kingdom political party that advocated the abolition of Parliament in favour of devolution to city-states and decision-making by referendum. Its leader was Ronnie Carroll...
" he previously stood in the 2001 General Election
United Kingdom general election, 2001
The United Kingdom general election, 2001 was held on Thursday 7 June 2001 to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. It was dubbed "the quiet landslide" by the media, as the Labour Party was re-elected with another landslide result and only suffered a net loss of 6 seats...
for the Belfast East
Belfast East (UK Parliament constituency)
Belfast East is a Parliamentary Constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Naomi Long of the Alliance Party, elected in 2010...
constituency where he won a total of 71 votes (0.2% of those cast). Despite this, Weiss has spent considerable time and money organising an unofficial postal referendum
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
to ask the people of Belfast whether they would like the city to be renamed "Best City", a name inspired by the late Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
football player George Best
George Best
George Best was a professional footballer from Northern Ireland, who played for Manchester United and the Northern Ireland national team. He was a winger whose game combined pace, acceleration, balance, two-footedness, goalscoring and the ability to beat defenders...
. With the celebrity endorsement of former professional snooker
Snooker
Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular table is . It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white , 15 worth one point each, and six balls of different :...
player Alex Higgins
Alex Higgins
Alexander Gordon "Alex" Higgins , also known by his nickname of Hurricane Higgins, was a Northern Irish professional snooker player who was twice World Champion and twice runner-up. Higgins earned the nickname The Hurricane because of his speed of play...
, the referendum took place in 2006 at an estimated cost (to Weiss himself) of £100,000. Only 2000 votes were returned, which means George effectively paid £50 for each vote he got.
Weiss was a candidate at the Brent East by-election
Brent East by-election, 2003
The Brent East by-election, 2003 was caused by the death on 18 June 2003 of the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Brent East, Paul Daisley, of the Labour Party....
standing for the www.xat.org party in 2003, won by Liberal Democrat
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...
Sarah Teather
Sarah Teather
Sarah Louise Teather is a British Liberal Democrat politician, Member of Parliament for Brent Central, Minister of State at the Department for Education, and Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Guantanamo Bay....
, where he came bottom of a list of 16 candidates with just eleven votes. While this vote was considerably low. lower votes had previously been registered, for example in the 1988 by-election in Kensington
Kensington (UK Parliament constituency)
Kensington is a parliamentary constituency in the Parliament of the United Kingdom in west London, comprising the northern and central parts of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around Kensington...
a candidate had polled just five votes. The Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket election record was also "surpassed" at the 2005 General election when British model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
Catherine Taylor-Dawson stood for the party in Cardiff North
Cardiff North
Cardiff North or North Cardiff can refer to the collections of mainly middle class suburban communities in the north of Cardiff, Wales. The population of the north of Cardiff is around 85,000 and is represented by the Conservative Party on most levels of government...
and achieved a single vote, though not from Taylor-Dawson herself, who wasn't eligible to vote in that constituency. Weiss himself set a new election record by simultaneously standing in 12 constituencies, beating Tom Keen of the Campaign for a More Prosperous Britain
Campaign for a More Prosperous Britain
The Campaign for a More Prosperous Britain was a political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded prior to the February 1974 general election by Tom Keen and Harold Smith, both business owners in Manchester....
's previous record of 10.
He stood in all four Belfast constituencies during the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly election
Northern Ireland Assembly election, 2007
The third elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly were held on 7 March 2007 when 108 new members were elected. The election saw endorsement of the St Andrews Agreement and the two largest parties, the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin, along with the Alliance Party, increase their...
. Standing for his Make Politicians History Party, he came third last in South Belfast
Belfast South (Assembly constituency)
Belfast South is a constituency in the Northern Ireland Assembly.The seat was first used for a Northern Ireland-only election for the Northern Ireland Assembly, 1973...
and last in the three other constituencies with a total of 221 first preference votes. Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...
leader Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams is an Irish republican politician and Teachta Dála for the constituency of Louth. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the second largest political party in Northern...
gave him a sixth preference vote in West Belfast
Belfast West (Assembly constituency)
Belfast West is a constituency in the Northern Ireland Assembly.The seat was first used for a Northern Ireland-only election for the Northern Ireland Assembly, 1973...
.
Radio phone-ins
Known as "George from Hampstead", or in light of his Belfast referendum plans "George Looney", he is a regular caller to the Clive Bull show on London radio station LBC, promoting his latest political ideas. He also calls talkSPORTTalkSPORT
Talksport , owned by UTV radio, is one of the United Kingdom's three terrestrial analogue Independent National Radio broadcasters, offering a sports and talk radio service broadcast from London to the United Kingdom....
late at night, most often to speak to George Galloway
George Galloway
George Galloway is a British politician, author, journalist and broadcaster who was a Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2010. He was formerly an MP for the Labour Party, first for Glasgow Hillhead and later for Glasgow Kelvin, before his expulsion from the party in October 2003, the same year...
or whoever is presenting the 1-5am slot. However, he is usually referred to as "Rainbow George" when calling that station. Occasionally he phones BBC Radio Five Live
BBC Radio Five Live
BBC Radio 5 Live is the BBC's national radio service that specialises in live BBC News, phone-ins, and sports commentaries...
where he is treated as a normal caller and usually gets cut off as soon as he attempts to publicise his own political agenda.
On 13 August 2007 George phoned in and revealed his plans for London in the year 2020, which included turning the M25 into a "wonderwall" and London becoming "the party capital of the world", financed by "the bank of a zillion wonders" in which everyone would be an account holder and "the wonder" would be the base currency with a rate of one hundred "gasps" to the "wonder".
"Rainbow George" also calls BBC London 94.9 a lot at night time and sometimes in the daytime.
The Russell Brand Show
On 13 and 20 October 2007, and more recently on 14 July 2008 and 11 October 2008, Rainbow George appeared on The Russell Brand ShowThe Russell Brand Show (radio show)
The Russell Brand Show is a radio show first broadcast in 2006 on BBC 6 Music. The show's host is English comedian Russell Brand, who is usually joined his by co-host and long-term friend, Matt Morgan, as well as the show's poet laureate, Greg "Mr Gee" Sekweyama...
on Radio 2
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
in order to publicize his political agenda, inviting Brand
Russell Brand
Russell Edward Brand is an English comedian, actor, columnist, singer, author and radio/television presenter.Brand achieved mainstream fame in the UK in 2004 for his role as host of Big Brother spin-off, Big Brother's Big Mouth. His first major film role was in the 2007 film St Trinians...
to take leadership of the party, (of which Brand was sceptical), and announcing an online petition requiring one million votes in order for the party to become recognized as a serious candidate in future elections.
During his appearance on the show on 14 June 2008, he told Brand that he had placed a bet on space ships appearing at the closing ceremony of the Olympic games in China, and invited him to take a one-third share in the bet, as well as to join him for some 'Boris Dancing' (named after mayor of London Boris Johnson) on Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath is a large, ancient London park, covering . This grassy public space sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London, running from Hampstead to Highgate, which rests on a band of London clay...
.