Nikolay Kalinin asks YouTube star Max Fosh about why he decided to run as a candidate in the 2021 London mayoral elections
Max Fosh is running a campaign to simply get more votes than ‘Detective Sergeant Ignoramus,’ the actor Laurence Fox, in next week’s London mayoral elections.
However, outside of appearances on his YouTube channel, Fosh has not spoken much about his campaign and his rivalry with Fox, so I decided to get to know him better and asked him 10 questions on behalf of The Steeple Times:
NK: Did you intend to run for London Mayor back in 2020 before the pandemic, or was it only after Laurence Fox announced his campaign that you decided to run?
MF: I decided to run when I saw a BBC News article outlining all the potential candidates, and at the bottom it had the different things that one needs to do in order to become a nominee, which was to get 66 signatures from 33 different boroughs – 2 individual signatures per borough – and to raise a £10,000 deposit. That’s what caused me to run, and I decided my main target was Laurence when I realised: ‘Hey, Sadiq’s going to win this election,’ so I wanted to have my own candidate to run against. I saw Lozza – similar background [they both went to school at Harrow], no experience in politics, he’s got 5 million quid and I don’t – and I decided to see who wins.
NK: Do you feel as if people your age and occupation are not taken seriously, especially by politicians?
MF: I think people my age and occupation are taken seriously, especially when they are pulling in numbers that they are. I mean, Niko Omilana has 5% of the vote, and he’s polling high in the 18-25 year old demographic, so I think we are being taken seriously.
NK: What was your reaction when you saw all these articles about you appearing on sites such as Daily Mail and Metro and, of course, in The Steeple Times?
MF: My reaction was of course: ‘Ooh! How interesting!’ Look, I know my media is online, so any information or any article that’s written about me in the mainstream press is always… well, I wouldn’t say it’s a welcome bonus, but it’s there and as long as more people can read the story of Max Fosh and his mayoral run then that can only be a good thing.
NK: In regards to Laurence Fox, what are you doing in order to get more votes than him besides making videos featuring you pranking him? It’s essential to note that you were tied with him in the ITV opinion poll revealed some time ago.
MF: I wouldn’t say I’m pranking him at all. I’m just positioning myself as a candidate. I’m just trying to utilise my audience to go out and vote and I have to preface this – I said this in multiple videos: I don’t want people to vote for me just because it can be fun. I want people to look at all the candidates running and make a formal decision and vote for whom they think is the best Mayor of London.
Would I be the best Mayor of London? Absolutely not. Would Laurence? Absolutely not. I’m just using my audience and the platform to encourage young people to vote.
NK: Will Laurence Fox in your opinion ever reach his political ambitions of first becoming London Mayor and then MP? What will happen to his Reclaim Party?
MF: I do not have the personal political expertise at all to be able to tell you whether he’ll reach his political ambitions. I mean, I’m not sure what his political ambitions really are; in this election, do I think he’s going to become Mayor of London? Absolutely not. In regards to the Reclaim Party, I really could not say, because it’s not my place to say. That’s more of a question for the party.
NK: How are you planning to react if you fail to get more votes than Fox?
MF: I would shake his hand, congratulate him and retire from politics.
NK: If you were legitimately running for position of London Mayor, what policies would you write in your manifesto?
MF: I am legitimately running for the position; I don’t think you could get any more legitimate than putting your name on the ballot paper. If you would like to see my manifesto, it’s all on laurencefox.org.
NK: Would you ever consider creating your own political party?
MF: No, not at all. I very much intend to retire after 6th May from politics altogether – whatever the result (obviously even if I win, which is an infinitesimal chance).
NK: How do you feel about major media outlets such as BBC, ITV and LBC ignoring your campaigns and instead interviewing and organising debates only between candidates from big parties?
MF: I totally agree with them. There are 20 candidates who are running, and four of them are considered the big players who are going to get most of the votes, so I think the big media outlets should be focused on them. It doesn’t mean they should be ignoring other campaigns, and they haven’t. I’ve been featured in every single nominee list, so I don’t really mind.
NK: Finally, do you think that your and Niko Omilana’s attempts to go into politics will start a trend where Internet personalities will try to run for public office?
MF: I don’t think that it will start a trend, because the trend has already happened; look at the US with Donald Trump, look at Ukraine with their President, so I don’t think this is going to kickstart a new trend; it’s already happening.
Follow Max Fosh on Twitter at @max_fosh and on Instagram at @max.fosh. Join his 423,000 subscribers on YouTube by clicking here.
