Meet the UKIP candidate who finds gorillas 'very attractive'

We’ve heard plenty of shitty excuses for homophobia over the years, but “I fancy gorillas but manage not to act on it” wins points for originality.

It’s an argument made by Gisela Allen, an 84-year-old UKIP candidate for Glasgow City Council – who honestly claimed in an interview with an actual newspaper: “I find a gorilla very attractive".

"I am not anti-gay,” she told the Sunday Herald. “But how can you call that a community? Sex life is everybody’s private affair. You do not come out and declare openly. Do you think I am going all over the city and saying my idea of a sexually-attractive creature is a gorilla? When I go to a zoo and I see a gorilla my hormones go absolutely crazy.”

A party colleague later contacted reporters from the Mirror to clarify that Allen had been joking about the whole fancying a gorilla business, but she’s not short of other, shall we say, outré political ideas. She’s clearly put a lot of thought, for instance, into the death penalty:

“The main purpose of the law is to protect the public,” she said. “If I could get the guillotine, lethal injection or firing squad I would gladly have it. I would also castrate violent criminals. You castrate bulls, horses, dogs – it takes the aggression away. Moreover, these violent criminals can’t have any more children themselves. And I am all for the cat o’ nine tails. You like violence? Well let’s see how you like to be on the receiving end.”

A huge fan of death in general, she’s also a huge supporter of euthanasia for just about anyone: “The NHS spends a fortune on prolonging the lives of, for instance, cancer sufferers. Settle the whole nonsense. Kidney transplants, heart transplants – come off it.”

But wait! There’s more! Last week Private Eye uncovered an absolute treasure trove of bad opinions, given stream-of-consciousness style to another newspaper.