‘If there’s one thing Eddie Izzard can’t be faulted on, it’s enthusiasm,’ Steerpike opined this week on the news that the comedian and actor, who also self-identifies as Suzy, is standing to become the Labour candidate for Brighton Pavilion – only a year after trying, and failing, to do so in Sheffield Central. There’s been a few raised eyebrows in my adopted hometown of Brighton & Hove (so good they named it twice) about the fact that Her Ladyship (I’m not going to call Izzard Her, but I don’t mind going that extra mile, as befits such an expensively-educated type) has promised grandly to make Brighton their ‘main home’ – get you – if they’re chosen as the candidate for Bright-Pav.

There have been some amusingly contemptuous online comments from readers of our local paper on the subject too, though you have to move quickly to read the best ones as the Argus is trigger-happy when it comes to deleting cheeky comments about Izzard. ‘This comment has been removed because it breaks our rules’ repeats with the weariness of a stale comedian’s punchline. One gets the distinct feeling that the Argus, often mocked for being able to come up with hilariously boring headlines in what is such a ‘lively’ city, is looking forward to the day that their drearily domesticated front-page news can be jazzed up with a little showbiz razzamatazz; MP FOR BRIGHTON PAVILION SUZY IZZARD GETS STILETTO STUCK IN NEGLECTED PAVEMENT or MP FOR BRIGHTON PAVILION SUZY IZZARD GOES A-OVER-T ON UNCOLLECTED RUBBISH.

The election of this flaming exhibitionist would be unlikely even in the madhouse I am proud to call home

What’s left are thoroughly understandable complaints about ‘parachuted candidates’ which is understandable here as Brighton has ‘previous’ with this sort of thing. We’ve just had a local scandal which saw two councillors expelled from the Labour party over claims they live more than 200 miles away, while last year two Green councillors, Tom Druitt and Alex Phillips – who do at least have a home in Brighton – stood down after it was revealed they’d spent lockdown in their French chateau rather than slum it with their suffering seaside constituents. Could it be that in a city which prizes ‘fluid’ identities, all four of these happy wanderers ‘identified’ as Brightonians? Honestly, what sort of bigot wouldn’t accept them as such, standing in their truth as spiritual members of the non-postcodey LGB&H community?

So yes, we may be even more keen than most voters to know that those who seek to represent us live amongst us; as an Argus commentator put it: ‘No one on the ticket worth voting for really – a musician, a clown and some ghost politicians. Were any of these actually born here? Why is it so hard for Labour to run a candidate in Brighton from Brighton – they struggle to even get their councillors to reside here.’

The musician in question is Tom Gray of the indie-landfill band Gomez, with whom he was a one-time winner of the Mercury Prize and in his own right winner of last year’s Music Producers Guild Unsung Hero award for his work in making sure that non-famous musicians get their fair share of streaming royalties. He is endorsed by trade unions, including the giant Unison, and by Feargal Sharkey, the perilously-voiced ex-Undertone crooner; another supporter, chairman of Brighton and Hove Young Labour, Tom Chatfield, couldn’t resist pointing out that Gray ‘knows the constituency extremely well and is dedicated to the local community.’ (Yes, we get it: he actually lives here.) Izzard, on the other hand, is supported by eight Labour councillors – which is preferable only to being supported by nine Labour councillors in the jaundiced eyes of my fellow Hovians and Brightonians – and by the manager of Southampton Football Club, surely something of an ‘own goal’ in a city where fealty to our local team, the Seagulls, borders on para-sexual obsession. Oh, and Izzard should probably keep it quiet that he is a big fan of Crystal Palace, Brighton’s fiercest rival

But we are surely naive to pillory Izzard for this recent attempted land grab; it’s what he does. Living elsewhere and arrogantly presuming you understand the problems of Brighton positively reeks of humility compared to growing up as an extremely privileged man and then believing that you can expect to be accepted as a woman as you seesaw between ‘girl mode’ and ‘boy mode’. Some might say that no one ever went broke overestimating the sheer molten nuttiness of Brightonians, but the election of this flaming exhibitionist and egoist would be unlikely even in the madhouse which I am proud to call home.

Izzard is the proud owner of two Emmys but showbusiness seems to hold no lure for the seasoned thespian, and he has become a glutton for political punishment. Not only was Them rejected as Labour candidate in Sheffield last year but before that ran unsuccessfully for the party’s National Executive Committee not once but twice; in 2017, They campaigned for Jeremy Corbyn, surely putting the final nail in Magic Grandpa’s coffin by opining that the scowling Steptoe-lookalike ‘believes in what he says.’ As Steerpike cheekily concluded ‘Who knows better about winning than good old Eddie, whose past triumphs include Yes2AV, Remain, euro membership and Andy Burnham’s leadership campaign?’ Best wake up, little Suzy, as the Everly Brothers once sang – you can be as Woke as you want, but you’re still not welcome here in B.Right-on.