A man dressed as a fish finger will challenge Tim Farron for his seat in June

The first wacky politics story in what’s going to be a very long election has arrived, just three days after it was announced.

The Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron is to be challenged for his Westmoreland and Lonsdale seat by a masterful situationist prankster known only as “Mr Fish Finger”.

The fish finger campaign has apparently already raised more than the £500 deposit needed to stand for election, successfully crowdfunding £1,478 and counting from a suite of idiots. Mr Fish Finger has promised that, should he win on June 8, he will conduct all parliamentary business hilariously dressed as a fish finger.

Farron, who once said that chemical imbalances in water make fish and frogs gay before claiming he had been hacked, won the seat from the Tories in 2005, but took 51.5% of the vote in 2015, with a majority of 8,949. He’s a divisive opportunist who claims he would openly prefer to enter coalition with the Conservatives than Labour, but he’s unlikely to be unseated by a man dressed as junkfood. 

Mr Fish Finger, who fills me with more loathing every time I am forced to type his stupid name, apparently decided to launch his campaign after more than 90% of people voting in a Twitter poll claimed they’d prefer a fish finger as a leader to Tim Farron. More than 1,000 people participated, because social media is where human brains go to die and we as a race deserve every awful thing that happens to us. There is a Twitter account, a hashtag and a crowdfunding page, and we are linking to none of them. Do not participate in this rank idiocy. 

For his part, Farron, who doesn’t have a sense of humour and who is absolutely desperate for people not to notice, has said he “welcomes the challenge” from Mr Fish Finger. However, as he quipped mirthlessly to ITV Border, he is "more of a chips and mushy peas man".

Personally, we hope they both get battered. Haha.