MINISTER FOR CONFUSION
Little is known about George’s background.
George spent most of his career as a diamond dealer but gave it up to become a mystic.
He moved into a rented house in Camden and found himself next-door-neighbour to the comedian Peter Cook. The two men got on famously.
Cook used to come round to George’s house and they would regularly record their conversations.
Peter Cook decided to start a political party as a joke. He called it the ‘What Party’. George was made Minister for Confusion. Cook’s girlfriend at the time, Ciara Parks, was made ‘Minister for Lifts’ and her mother ‘Minister for Ladders’. The only attempt at an election failed so Cook abandoned politics. He had only meant his foray into politics as a joke, but George had taken it seriously.
Cook and George used to make spoof phone calls to Radio London. George portrayed himself as Sven, a Norwegian fisherman. Another pseudonym was Sterling Silver.
Soon, the radio station twigged as to what was happening and George was banned from the airwaves.
After the IRA bombing of the Brighton Grand Hotel in 1984, George decided to ‘clean up politics.’ He founded the Rainbow Party – hence his nickname ‘Rainbow George’ (also sometimes known as Loony George).
That same year, George went away for a few weeks. He returned to find the roof of his house had collapsed, destroying all his possessions. He demanded compensation and a roof repair from his landlord but heard nothing. So, he stopped paying rent and continued living in the house. This continued for twenty years until he could claim Squatter’s Rights.
He never heard from his old landlord again.
Many years later, George was given the house by the courts, and he promptly sold it for £850,000. Then he moved to Hampstead.
Meanwhile, George’s political career continued. He wanted to be rid of all countries, borders and political parties. He said God would be replaced by a peace-loving Artificial Intelligence and money would be replaced by something called ‘the Wonder’. He said, “The truly loving God (AI),would have a bank of a zillion wonders to look after everyone. We could sustain a virtual paradise.”
George started to stand in general elections, European elections and by-elections. Often the party’s name would change – ‘The Wonder Party’, ‘Captain Rainbow’s Universal Party (CRUP)’, the ‘Paradise Pursuing People Party (PPPP)’ and the ‘Make Politicians History Party’.
In 1988, George stood in a by-election in Kensington. He got just five votes.
The following year, George was caught in a tabloid ‘sting’. He was caught buying LSD worth £150 at Swiss Cottage Holiday Inn. The News of the World labelled him, ‘The master pusher behind the acid house craze.’ That tickled him.
Standing in a by-election in Brent East saw his votes rise to eleven. George figured more than doubling his share of the vote proved the lurid headlines had not put voters off.
He stood in the 1992 General Election in the Enfield Southgate seat, held by Cabinet Minister, Michael Portillo. Afterwards he was proud to declare that he, “Had only lost by 15,952 votes.”
It was around this time that George created the Rainbow Alliance with Screaming Lord Sutch’s ‘Monster Raving Loony Party’.
In 1995, Peter Cook died aged just 57. George had over 100 hours of tapes of their conversations held in the 1980s. He promptly fell out with Cook’s widow, Lin, when she refused to allow him to make them public.
George subsequently took the tapes to Radio 4 and a programme was being made when Lin threatened to sue, so the BBC stopped production. Many years later, a CD of the recordings was finally released entitled ‘Over at Rainbow’s’.
In 1997, George stood again for parliament in Enfield Southgate. At the time there was a huge concern about the Orange Marches in Ireland. George said the solution was easy. Also allow Blue Marches, Purple Marches and Yellow Marches.
Although there was a seismic political shock as Portillo lost his seat in parliament, it wasn’t George that won. He polled just 48 votes.
In 2005, (just after George had sold his house) he stood simultaneously in 13 separate constituencies in the General Election. Across them all he polled 1, 289 votes.
The Observer labelled him, “A cross between the extraordinary and the tedious, the wonderful and the worrying.”
With the money George had made from the house sale, he started a variety of eccentric projects.
Firstly, he began his own record label and signed one artist, Ronnie Carroll, who had represented Britain at the 1962 Eurovision Song Contest, where he had sung ‘Ring-a-Ding Girl’. Ronnie was now 69. They made an LP. It sold virtually zero copies.
Next, George hired a plane and held an in-flight rock concert aboard it.
He sponsored musician John Otway’s World Tour. They hired a jet (£50,000) and Otway flew around the world, taking his own audience (250 of them) with him.
George and John Otway hired Camden Palace for a concert. It was free to get in, but you had to pay £1 to get out.
Quickly, George’s money drained away.
He once bumped into Michael Palin in the street and complained to him that he could get no political publicity. The very next day George walked into Hampstead Police Station smoking a joint and got arrested. That got him publicity.
In 2008, George persuaded the bookmakers William Hill to change a bet. He had put £333 at odds of 3,000-1, on aliens disturbing the opening ceremony London Olympics, in 2012. “Then I realised that was stupid. It would disrupt the whole event and the aliens wouldn’t want to do that. So, I changed it to the closing ceremony.”
George was a friend of Ian Dury, Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins, football legend Jackie Milburn, Charles Saatchi and Russell Brand, often appearing on the comedian’s radio show.
George once promoted a concert on Hampstead Heath, where he claimed Brand would appear as the reborn Messiah.
This concerned the comedian. When George began to use Brand’s image on his political posters, the comedian quickly dropped him.
George’s last election campaign was 2017. Now representing the ‘Vote for Yourself’ party, he stood against Labour MP Tulip Siddiq in Hampstead and Kilburn.
He claimed to have retired from politics but returned in 2019, reforming the Rainbow Party to, “sort out the chaos of Brexit.” He called for a new European Union with no countries or politicians, just “Peaceful, harmonious, leisure-orientated, poverty free world”.
Georg died in his sleep in a Highgate residential home.
The Hampstead Village Voice paper, where he had dropped in at least once a week with a new plan (and he met the Editor at a Coffee Shop on a weekly basis), headlined “The Godfather of Hampstead Eccentrics Dies.”
The editor said, “He wasn’t someone you took that seriously, politically. But I took him seriously as a friend. He just wanted everyone to be OK and no one to want for anything – but the way he went about it was too eccentric to cut any cheese with anyone. He was a lovely man.”
Another friend, Jon Moss, (former drummer of Culture Club), said, “Weiss separated the people of Hampstead – those who knew George and thought he was great and then the others who just thought he was a weirdo.”
RIP = Rainbow Invades Politics
