OPINION: "Where have you gone Graeme Cairns, the city turns its lonely eyes to you, woo-woo-woo …" (with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel).

With so much election seriousness afoot, I caught myself wondering, where is the levity in this election?

Where's the fun? Where is the laughter and where is the McGillicuddy Serious Party when we need them?

Where is McGillicuddy Serious Political Party leader, Laird McGillicuddy Graeme Cairns and more importantly where is Hamilton's monument to the great Hamilton man?

I raise these questions out of pure nostalgia for the good old days.

It all started on a recent Friday night on TV3 when those 7 Days comedians (who love taking the piss out of Hamilton) put one of the city's finest in a lineup to see if anyone recognised the good Laird Graeme Cairns from the rest.

Anyone who has Hamilton blood in their veins and is of a certain age would have known immediately it was that stunningly handsome fellow with the hair and kilt hiding in plain sight.

That was Hamilton's true leader for all millennia.

The man who led the McGillicuddy Serious Party (MSP) to a high of 11,714 votes, or 0.61% of the vote in 1993.

This outstanding electoral return means Cairns and his McGillicuddy clansmen are likely still more relevant today, than the country's high-profile cat-hating millionaire at the TOP (The Opportunities Party).

The MSP stood candidates in the 1984, 1987, 1990, 1993, 1996 and 1999 general elections and the 1986, 1989, 1992, 1995 and 1998 local body elections.

That's a political track record of utter irrelevance and funny buffoonery McGillicuddy Alumni can be proud of.

Hamiltonians loved the McGillicuddy Serious Party as did the country.

Not all was well however as the party soon wallowed in electrical disfavour and did a Greens disappearing act winning just .15 per cent of the vote in 1999.

Party leader Graeme Cairns paid a high price for the defeat by placing himself in stocks in Garden Place as disgruntled party members pelted him with rotten fruit, a TV scene replayed on 7 Days.

New Zealand elections have been woefully boring ever since the McGillicuddies departed from the electoral hustings and left us with the sight of boring old men beating up other boring old men and then being gazumped by a woman who dares to be charismatic and capable.

What I'd give for a mock battle with paper swords and some flour.

It seems the Labour Party has taken a leaf out of the McGillicuddy political playbook with the great leap backwards to free tertiary education, but I'd take it over almost anything Steven Joyce has to say about budgets and black holes.

Hard experience says you should never let anyone with student radio experience near your country's finances.

Cairns and his henchmen should be remembered for striking fear into the public sphere, as voters would soon realise we take politicians too seriously, particularly when they think they are media stars rather than public servants.

And the one thing politicians fear the most is the big question:

Why the hell do we need you when we could have the McGillicuddy Serious Party leading the nation?

We have become too complacent in our willingness to swallow the daily drivel coming from ministers of the Crown who are sticking their noses in the trough because they couldn't get a job employed in the ministerial areas of interest they oversee.

And where-oh-where is there anything today to match the election manifestos that had the country considering its future in such depth as the McGillicuddy policies that unashamedly meant nothing to everyone?

Here, according to the Wikipedia McGillicuddy Serious Party entry, are just some of the groundbreaking policies that could have made this country (and Hamilton) great again:

Full employment by carpeting the national highways: this would also save wear and tear on tyres.

Limiting the speed of light to 100 km/h: 50 km/h in Mt Roskill (Auckland's Bible Belt) because folks there preferred to stay less enlightened.

De-invent the wheel.

Mandatory homosexuality for 33% of the population – also devised to annoy the fundamentalists.

Free castration

Setting up a Frivolous Fraud Office to investigate any fraud deemed too silly for the Serious Fraud Office.

It seems to this swinging voter, the policies on offer from our current politicians are largely imported philosophies from major nations the parties rebrand and sell off as their own.

I would like to see a dose of McGillicuddy innovation and old age thinking return to New Zealand's electoral discourse.

If we ever needed a rising from the Scottish highlands in the form of Cairns and his motley crew of highland henchmen, I say let the city and the country open its arms to the hairy men.

And let's celebrate as we revisit once again the McGillicuddies innovative 'great leap backwards' " policy thrust.

Graeme Cairns, lead us back. Let's do this and make New Zealand great again!

Heid doon arse up! Translation: Get on with it!