I’m in a van with three pirates, and we’re pillaging snacks from all the major political parties in Iceland. It’s 27 April, election day in Reykjavík, and the months of campaigning are over. The parliamentary candidates of the Pirate Party have nothing to do except drive around the various party headquarters appropriating cake and crisps. They prefer to call it “challenging the antagonism of the current political climate”. By dropping in on rival parties. And taking their food.
“This is taxpayer-funded, so actually it’s already my food,” says Kristjan, a huge, jolly, bearded technologist who is running as a candidate in Reykjavík. He slips a choc ice into his pocket as we say goodbye to the centrist Progressive Party, with its impressive spread of smoked-tongue pavlova. Next, we’re off to see the Social Democrats, who may or may not have coffee. There are 15 parties running in what may be the oddest national election Europe has seen in decades, so we’re unlikely to go hungry.
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