Comedian Alexei Sayle endorses the Green Party

Sayle's vote will hopefully help elect Liverpool-based Green Party candidate Peter Cranie, and thus deny racist BNP leader Nick Griffin a seat in North West England.

Alexei Sayle said, in an email to Peter Cranie this morning:

"One of the great things about Britain is that, unlike in a lot of Europe, we have never let extremist parties of the right get anything but a tiny toehold in our electoral system. I'll personally be voting Green this time but whoever you support you should use your vote to continue our noble tradition and keep the BNP out."

Yesterday Peter Cranie held a photocall in Manchester with leading comedian and satirist Mark Thomas, who has made a YouTube video endorsing the Green Party and saying that "all the other parties are crap."

And this morning another well-known comic, Mark Steel, wrote in the Independent newspaper:

" ... the cheery note is that the Green Party has attained credibilty while retaining its principles, and seems to be the home for many people who opposed the Iraq war, oppose the rule of bankers and private finance, and feel it might be worth looking at doing something about the fact the planet's about to melt. So I'm voting for them tomorrow ..."

Joanna Lumley has also said that she is voting for Green Party leader Caroline Lucas in the South East region.

With the Greens polling on 15% in the latest ComRes survey, the party is "cautiously optimistic" of winning more MEP seats. The Sunday Telegraph has suggested that the Greens could win eight MEP seats, with the Independent predicting ten.