Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - Monkey for Mayor from This Day in Esoteric Political History

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

What happens when a monkey gets elected mayor? Well, not really a monkey, but a monkey mascot for a town’s football games. Tim Harford joins This Day in Esoteric Political History to discuss a weird moment from UK history in 2002, when the northeastern English town of Hartlepool was gearing up for a mayoral election and ended up voting in…the local football club’s monkey mascot to run their government. They discuss how H’Angus the Monkey got elected, and how the man inside the suit, Stuart Drummond, went on to be a very effective administrator.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. Hello, Tim Halford here. At not long ago, I popped up on Jody Avagans' podcast this day in esoteric political history. And I thought I'd share that interview with you now. This day in esoteric political history is a short show. It drops three times a week, it's really fun to listen to. At on the show, Jody and his co-hosts, Nicole Hema and Kelly Carter Jackson take one moment, big or small, often forgotten, from a specific

day in US political history, and they discuss how it might inform the world we live in today. However, I managed to convince them to go off-piece and talk about a weird moment from UK political history. I talked about the moment in 2002 when the north-eastern English town of Hartlepool was gearing up for a mayoral election and they ended up voting in the local football clubs Monkey Mascot to run their government. So I discussed how hangast the monkey got elected, and what happened to the man inside the suit, Stuart Drummond, when he got his hands on the levers of power? Here's the episode, I think you like it, and if you do, you can find more episodes of

this day in esoteric political history wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radio topia. My name is Jody Avergan. This day, April 28, 2002, in the north-eastern English town of Hartlepool, population about a hundred thousand or so, a man by the name of Stuart Drummond was about to be elected mayor. The election would happen on May 4th and that's when Drummond would become mayor. Some notable things about Stuart Drummond. He was only 28, he had a degree in business and languages from the University of Sulford.

He'd worked at a call center and on a cruise ship. Alright, let me cut to the chase here. I'm burying the lead a little bit about Stuart Drummond. Stuart Drummond was a monkey. Or at least he was a monkey mascot. He was the guy in the costume at the local football club games. The team's mascot was a monkey for reasons we'll get into. And Stewart was inside that costume firing up the crowd. And that was basically his only claim to fame.

He ran as a joke and he won as a joke. And funnily enough, he actually became a pretty good mayor. And there are some lessons in there, I would say, about democracy and political credentialism and the power of free bananas as your platform. So, let's talk about all of this, the Monkey Mayor of Hartlepool, with our very special guest back on the show,

Tim Hartford, undercover economist, host of the wonderful show from Pushkin cautionary tales And he tells the story of the monkey mayor in the latest season Tim welcome back to the show and congrats on the new season Thank you great to be back What a wonderful introduction to just you at Drummond and the and the town that elected a monkey for a mayor I love it. Yeah, no one says his name. You know, they always say the monkey So I figured give a steward and I want to say, we'll get into this story, but I also want to give you kudos.

Is this the first episode of Coshner Tales in which you sing? I caught that. You sing a little bit, and I appreciate that. Well, it's possible. I actually sing a traditional folk song from the northeast of England. I'm, the accent is, is not good, but the,

I think I'm in tune, so that's something. Yeah, it's wonderful. And of course with us, as always, our Nicole Heimer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson, a foesley host of Ophidemics. Hello there. Hello, Jody. Hey there.

So, Tim, you're gonna tell us the story of Stuart. We're gonna bring a little bit of other interesting moments of joke candidates, animal candidates, and we'll talk about some of the bigger lessons here. But I suppose we should also lay out why is the monkey particularly important in this town in northeast England of Hartlepool? So let me take you back to the Napoleonic Wars. We're going back more than 200 years. The story is that while Britain was at war with France, on the northeast coast of England, near the town of Hartlepool, a French ship was wrecked, and the sole survivor of the shipwreck was a very small hairy gentleman, in other words a monkey, and that the local folk of Hartlepool presum presumed since they had never seen a Frenchman, that this is

might be what a Frenchman looked like. So they quizzed the monkey and the monkey just didn't respond in any language they could understand, which makes sense because none of them spoke French. And so in the end they presumed since the monkey was unable to defend himself in English, they presumed the monkey was a French spy and hung the monkey. That's the story. I mean it was. I 100% believe it. It's the end of the episode there. No reason to ask any follow-up questions. Barbar to good to check. So this has just become a local tradition. So the local towns near Hartlepool, they all tease the Hartle-Puddly and Hartle-Puddly and so the local towns near Hartlepool, they all

tease the Hartle-Puddly and Hartle-Puddly and Sister Wood, from Hartlepool, they all tease the Hartle-Puddly and so being dumb, they hung a monkey, thinking he was a French spy, and the Hartle-Puddly and Sister Wood have kind of embraced this, so it's not like they're proud that maybe they're ancestors hung a monkey or maybe they didn't, I mean nobody really knows, it's that they can get the joke. So they're on the joke, they're able to laugh at themselves, there's a big generous hearted people. That's the way the heart and the pollyons think about it. And so the monkey is a tradition in the town of Hartlepool and the local soccer team has a mascot, of course, and of course the mascot is a monkey. The monkey is actually called hangus. So, no,

her apostrophe, hangus, hangus, you get it. It's very funny. So yeah, so the monkey is big in in Hartlepool and hangus, the monkey, the local soccer mascot is a big character. So that sets us up for the election of 2002. Yeah and I think that there's like another big step that we have to explain, which is how Hengus went from being a soccer mascot to becoming a candidate for office, because it wasn't it wasn't that this man ran under his own name and just happened to be a mascot. He ran as Hengus. That was the name of the ballot, right? Yeah. Yeah. He ran as hangers to monkey. So, mayors were not really a thing in many English towns. There was a reform introduced at the beginning of the 21st century. We're going to have more local democracy. That was the idea. A lot

of people didn't entirely take it seriously with consequences that are going to become apparent. So Hartlepool was supposed to be electing a mayor and Hartlepool is one of these. You know, it's like in the in the US you've got the you've got the deep blue states, you've got the deep red states. Hartlepool's a Labour Party territory. You know, the left of centre party, they always have a Labour member of Parliament, they always vote Labour, there's no doubt about this. And against this backdrop, Stuart Drummond, the guy and the monkey costume, goes to the chairman of the football club and says, hey, why don't I run? It'll raise the profile of the club, we can maybe raise some money for charity, it'll be fun.

He doesn't think anyone's gonna vote for him. Nobody thinks anyone's gonna vote for him. The bookies are offering odds of, I don't know, a hundred to one, I forget exactly, but no big of a sort of a four hundred to one. Was it four hundred to one? Yeah. And then it tumbles to four to one

over the course of election. Which is a nice option. Yeah, so as people start to realize, maybe they will actually vote for the monkey. And well, you can see where this is going, they vote for the monkey. So this is a guy who, he is literally a joke candidate. And the joke is on him. And he never thought he would be elected. He never wanted to be elected.

And suddenly he was elected. And so where do we go from there? So let's stay in that moment because there's also a whole story about the fact that he ends up as well, but you know, being a pretty good mayor, which is an interesting thing we'll talk about. But you know, in terms of kind of what this teaches us about democracy and campaigns and so forth, I don't know, Kelly, do you feel like this is a story of, well, it's nice that we don't take politics too seriously or a story of, oh no, this is what happens when we

don't take politics. I think it's a little bit of both. I think that people wanted an opportunity to have some fun because they did not think it would happen. But what happens when everyone thinks something won't happen? It kind of happens. And that's exactly, you know, everyone went in the box and sort of checked checked for this haggis and hangus. And it's like, you know, everyone went in the box and sort of checked for this hangus and hangus and it's like, you know, now you have to sort of deal with the ramifications

of it. But in hindsight, you know, they do raise a lot of money, it does raise a lot of attention and drumming turns out to be not so bad. Yeah, I think it's an interesting question as to whether people voted and they never thought it would actually result in the monkey guy being elected or whether they didn't care whether he was elected or not because they didn't think the mayor, the mayoral office was important. I mean, it wasn't it was the first time there had been a mayoral election in the modern era.

So it's not clear whether it mattered, whether anybody thought it mattered. So this is partly a story I think of just people feeling disaffected with politics. It doesn't make any difference. We might as well vote for the monkey, who cares? Well, to that end, I think one interesting data point here is that the result of this election was very close, but he wins 5,696 to 5,174 and a town of 100,000 or so. So look at the turnout. And so I think that that's part of the lesson here is when you have such tiny turnout when politics is treated as a side show or whatever people don't feel invested, then it just creates a vacuum of sorts and this kind of thing can happen. And it's worth learning out that this wasn't just

an honorary position. Like this was somebody who was going to control a staff of 3,000 people, of a budget of like a hundred million dollars. This was a real position of leadership, which I would expect he was a little No, it's nothing. No, it's nothing. No, it's nothing. No, it's nothing. No, it's nothing. No, it's nothing. No, it's nothing.

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the consequences of my own actions. And he's a young guy, but he had a degree in business. So he said, I guess I'd better go to some evening classes, go take some training. So he said it was like taking six masters degrees in six months. He trained up, he took it seriously. And then when that lovely little touch is like, one of his pledges was free bananas for every child at school. Which is like, it's a joke, because he's a monkey, so free bananas. But then when he gets elected, he's like, well, actually the kids should have fruit,

that's good for them. So he manages to get some funding together and he fulfills that pleasure. At least each child gets a piece of fruit, might not be a banana, but gets a piece of fruit, might not be a banana, but gets a piece of fruit every day. So, you know, even the jokes turn into, actually, that's a perfectly respectable policy.

Yeah. I think it's to John's credit though, that he actually takes it seriously and that he does sort of say, okay, what do I need to do? What do I need to learn? Because you can imagine this could have, with the wrong person,

with a different kind of character, could have gone in completely different direction, could have abused their power authority or like, you know, who knows what the outcome could have been, but I appreciate the fact that he actually was like, you know what, let's make the most of this. I love that there's a little twist in the story as well, the local member of Parliament. The equivalent of a member of Congress, a local member of Parliament, in Hartnabould, a gentleman called Peter Mandelson, and Peter Mandelson was a huge player in the Labour Party at the time. And very much representative of this idea that the Labour Party, traditionally the party of the workers, like the Democrats in the US, had become too metropolitan, too elitist. Mandelson was from London, he's very obeying, he's very sophisticated, very posh accent.

And there's a story about Mandelson, which is probably about as true as the original story of hanging the monkey, that when he was taken to a traditional Hartlepool fish and chip shop and served mushy peas, and mushy peas is like, mushy peas is a difficult thing to describe. Imagine a cross between mashed potatoes and peas and pure malt vinegar. That's the best description I can, it's a really kind of sharp sour, it's hard to describe, it's very traditional, it's very distinctive of the area.

But when Mandelson saw it, he assumed it was guacamole and guacamole was completely unknown in the UK at the time. That was a super fancy Mexican thing that nobody knew about. So, with this story, he doesn't even know what much he's are. He thinks it's something that you should be getting in a Mexican restaurant. But Mandelson, when he then meets Stuart Drummond, and he, Mandelson, is this representative of traditional power in the Labour Party, and Drummond gets himself elected instead of the Labour candidate for mayor. Mandelson comes up to him and says, you're a laughing stock of the town.

How will any businesses in festinous now, the whole world, as laughing at us, who just made a joke out of us, and he really, he rips into him, and he asks him a few questions. And then he walks straight over to the TV cameras to give an interview. And when the camera's on, he's like, oh no, not at all. Stuart's a wonderful boy. He's a very, very intelligent young man. He speaks three languages. He's trained in business.

He really has the best interest of the community at heart. He'll be a terrific man. And Stuart is watching this and goes, oh, okay. I'm in politics now. This is how politics works. I just love that kind of vignette of how it all goes behind the scenes. Right. Okay, let's take a quick break and we will be right back.

All right, we're back with Tim Hartford on this day in esoteric political history. But also, you know, I think 2002, it happens in this country as well. I mean, we're starting to see a moment where labor is somehow starts to get painted as not the party of the working class and more out of touch elites. And if it's not guacamole in the UK here, it's the charge of lattes and hummus or whatever you know. In Arugula. And Arugula, for liberal out of touch elites. And so I think there's that interesting dynamic.

And that's obviously that sort of populist strain continues to this day in both countries. The other part of this, I think, is interesting and sort of marks it in a particular moment is, I mean, no surprise, it's a joke campaign. I mean, German doesn't really campaign. He doesn't really do like events, you know, I mean, he's obviously a mascot and he's trying to raise a little awareness,

but the media environment, I think, is important too, that like that, you know, it's a changing media environment and one in which, because of just sort of, a changing media environment, a candidate can kind of get their own earned press as opposed to having to do the sort of traditional gatekeeping avenues of campaigning. And so I'm sure that's part of this story as well. Yeah, and the mere outrageousness of it, the fact that it does, I mean, one is obviously

there are many, many differences, but I'm sort of reminded of when Donald Trump's to be president. And everyone's like, it's crazy, this is a reality TV star guy is gonna be president. Of course, he's not gonna be president, it's ridiculous. But the sheer fact of it being absurd means that it's a huge news story, and then suddenly people are taking him seriously as a candidate

because he's cut through all the noise. And obviously this is a much smaller scale and heartlepool and a very different kind of candidate, but it's the same phenomenon. Like of course people are going to run stories about the guy in the monkey suit running to be mayor. So let's talk a bit about sort of joke candidates and we ought to have a list of animal candidates as well.

Tim, do you know, do you know the name Susanna Salter? Is that name Ring of Bell? No, this is why I come on this podcast, Jody, because I intend to acquire an education in politics. Tell me about it. Susanna Salter was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas in 1887. The first woman elected mayor in the United States, and her election was a joke.

The men of the town put her on the ballot to prove a point that a woman could never get elected mayor of their town. And lo and behold, she was elected mayor of the town and the first woman mayor in the United States. So, you know, these stunt candidacies sometimes lead to genuine, you know, civil rights grounds. The jokes on you! That's right.

And she, and she much like Stewart, you know, kind of grew into the role. And that's another thing you sort of outline in your piece, is that like, sometimes the traditional politicians aren't the ones who shoot or qualify. And sometimes, you know, just a person seemingly randomly or jokily placed on the ballot can rise to the occasion, and they may be just as qualified as anyone else to run a town. I love that. And it speaks to a very populist sentiment, what you're saying, Jody, right? You know, there's that famous line where William F. Buckley Jr. in the 1960s says like, he rather the city be run by the first one of the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book then by a professional politician and that idea that you know this

is a job that anyone can do and in fact professional politicians are the least qualified to do it is a strong sentiment in a lot of different places. It's crazy me though like just thinking about the idea of not just anyone running but an animal running from office is something that blows my mind. And so, doing like this deep dive, I found that there is a town called Rabbit Hash, Kentucky that has only ever had dogs for mayors.

So, not rabbits. Not rabbits. Not rabbits. The rabbits are the hash. I have so many questions. I have so many questions. I mean, it happens more than you would think in the US that animals, whether it's dogs or cats, occasionally goats, get voted in as mayor, because the mayor's office is considered so,

you know, well, exactly like the people of Hartlapool, right? Like it was considered symbolic or so warm. So warm. So warm. So ceremonial that you end up, you know, okay, fine. You're gonna have a mule who is the governor in Milton, Washington, or, I don't know going to have a mule who is the governor in Milton Washington or I don't know, you have a cat who's the mayor of a main Michigan.

Up through the mask of the dog, a black labrador, while it makes elected to the mayor of Sanol, California. So of course the problem is then if it turns out that the office of the mayor isn't quite a symbolic as people think and it does actually matter then you have a problem. I mean I'm recalling all the way back, Caligula, the Roman Emperor, appointed his horse as a consul if I recall correctly. And that is partly this idea that Caligula was mad, but I think also the fact that the consoles had some restraining power over the emperor. If you appoint a horse and the horse is not going to object anything that you do, so you're basically doing an end run around attempts at a balance of

power or separation of power. So yeah, I do wonder whether sometimes this comes back to bite people where they think that the office is a joke and it's not a joke at all. And if you elect a dog or a horse or whatever, then you will suffer the consequences. Yeah, particularly if they're not well trained, they'll bite you. The name of that horse, Inca-tatus, which means full gallop or swift, could googly. I will say, you know, though,

a lot of these towns in the US in particular that elect animals, they do it when the mayoral role is a ceremonial place, and I would imagine that a lot of these towns there's what a lot of towns have which is a city manager and actually I think that's kind of like part of this story as well is just sort of what do we think of it you were just saying to me what do we think of the role of mayor and part of me almost thinks like we're either at one extreme which is like politics is deadly serious you need these you know career politicians who who are good on

TV and so forth to do it or it's all the way at the other end where This is a joke, you know, and to me the truth is probably somewhere in the middle Which is like this is a managerial job and I think that Stewart shows us that you know that he grows into the role he treats it seriously Chate takes it as seriously as he probably took his job at the call center or on the cruise ship and he just kind of goes to work each day And I do think like we've lost a little sense of politics as a profession in that sense. I think it's a really important idea. And somebody needs to be competent somewhere, right?

Unless we think that all of politics is a joke, which it really isn't. And I think we get into a very nasty situation where there's not the same as electing animals. When you elect a candidate because I'm a Republican and I'm gonna vote for Republicans, doesn't matter what or I'm a Democrat, I'm gonna vote for Democrats. When parties are so polarized, the quality of the candidates potentially starts

to really suffer. There's a classic paypring economics. I'm just drawing a blank on the person who wrote it, he won a Nobel Prize, but that basically proves that, but I think it's quite intuitive that the more polarized you are, the easier it is to get away with incompetence or corruption, because it's my party right or wrong, and that's a bad situation to be in. You know, it's interesting too. I teach an American history survey course and we talk about the rise of black elected officials

in like the 60s and the 70s, when you get your first big black mayors, like your David Dinkins or your Harold Washingtons or black mayors of like these smaller towns. And oftentimes they're coming into office when the cities are defunct or bankrupt or you know really in dire straits and then there's this idea that's like well it can't get any worse so okay I like the

black mayor you know like that has sort of been like the the some similar sentiments could have been made about Barack Obama in the economy of 2008 But like this idea of if things feel really bad or if things are really bad What do we lose by electing someone who may feel like an outlier or or risky maybe not much? And is that then I think of that going two ways, is on the one hand, I've heard similar comments made about female CEOs, the woman always has to come in to clean up the mess. So on the one hand, these people from disadvantaged groups who previously haven't had much access to power, they get put in office just at the moment when things are terrible. Does that mean that they end up tarnished by the fact that things are so bad?

Or if there's regression to the mean, then maybe they just get the credit for the upswing. I don't know how that works out. I'm sure it's a mixed bag. Yeah, for sure, because it's a matter of judging success or failure on how they succeed or fail. It's not necessarily based on the even playing field. Right. A couple of there just tidbits worth thinking about. I mean, I do think this question of a joke candidate. And I just, not to get too big thinking,

but I do think like jokingness and politics right now and the way that certain people kind of play with, oh, this is a joke, this is a joke, until then all of a sudden they decided it's deadly serious. I think that it strikes me as one of the defining features in modern politics, is that people just say, wild stuff on TV or they tweet wild stuff and then they can kind of backtrack and be like, oh no, it was just a joke, it was just a joke.

And I just think the way that jokingness has sort of infused its way through politics and it's very slippery and it's weaponized and so forth is really, it's really kind of one of the defining features of modern politics. And you see those roots a little bit in here as well, just even in, you know, even in still is decision to just say like, oh, this is a place where I can be a little joking. One of the most effective politicians in the world right now is a professional comedian called a major lendsky. Right.

But then that's an example I think of growing, and you know, people think he grew into the role. I mean, the mayor of Reykjavik was a comedian as well who kind of decided to run as a joke and then got elected and has grown into the role and been fairly competent. So yeah, you see it. You know, sure, right? Exactly, yeah, that's true. There are also always, quote unquote, joke candidates in the US.

And so I think it's worth just giving a shout out to people like, Vermin Supreme. You know who Vermin Supreme is? Always floating around in the like, New Hampshire primaries as a libertarian Democrat candidate wears like a big boot on his head, has a huge beard and a wizard world. But he's a, he's a,

he's a a every election, these nuts ran in 2020. As you remember, got a fair number of writing votes. And then to wrap it all up and bring it all around back to the monkey. I don't know if you remember this was another head spinning moment in 2016, but Harambe, the monkey, who was a very meme, who's very meme- Yeah, man. Like a million writing votes in 2016, but Harambe, the monkey, who was a very meme, who was very mean, like a million

writing votes in 2016. So, you know, there you go, there you have your monkey, your monkey call back. We're in trouble, people. It's not great. That might be. Well, yeah, I mean, if you want to just take it to a more enlightening place or more encouraging place, Stuart enjoyed being there. Yeah.

And he ran again, the end of his first term, he ran again, and he ran not as hangars the monkey, he ran a Stuart drummond. Like the guy you accidentally elected mayor, he said, I'm serious this time, would you elect me again? And he won with a bigger majority. And then he ran for a third term and he won again. So he started as a joke, but the people of Hartlepool obviously thought, actually, this guy's good. They'll have him again. And as you point out in your piece, which I think people should go listen, because there's a lot more there, but there's something there about promotion and management and just sort of saying,

like if you give people an opportunity, they can grow into it. Yeah, there's a business school literature, which I discuss. Yeah. It's a really, really great episode. And of course, to hear more stories like that, you can go check out cautionary tales wherever you get

your podcasts, one of our favorite shows. And Tim, thank you so much for doing this. This was really, really fun. and congratulations on the new season. Thank you very much. Pleasure. Nicole Hammer, thanks to you. Thank you, Jodie. Kelly Carter Jackson, thanks to you. My pleasure.

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