‘Let’s flatten Northgate’

Mr Stead, 73, a folk musician from Sowerby Bridge, set up the World Peace Through Song party after becoming disillusioned with the major political parties.

He said: “Last October, I thought to myself ‘who am I going to vote for?’ - I used to be a staunch Labour support, but since 2003 when Tony Blair decided to attack Iraq I said to myself that I could never vote Labour again.

“We now have disaffected muslims across the world - if we apologise for what we did in 2003, that might go some way to stopping all the young muslims heading out to Syria to join Isis.

“You can’t change history, but the history we have could have been completely different.”

He said as a candidate he is backing the campaign to save the A&E from closure in Halifax and said that staff at the hospital had saved his wife’s life when she suffered an allergic reaction to nuts, adding that if he’d had to take her to Huddersfield she wouldn’t have survived.

He said he is in favour of re-nationalising the railways and introducing a minimum price that supermarkets can pay farmers for milk.

He added through song: “Labour can’t be trusted, since they bombed Iraq. Tony Blair should go to jail and I don’t want Labour back. Please don’t vote for UKIP, they’re just a waste of space. Their manifesto isn’t nice, their leader’s a disgrace.

“Greens are headless chickens, Liberals are a no-show.

“Vote for World Peace Through Song, in May just vote for Joe.”