General Election 2015: Eddie Izzard plans run for Parliament in stiletto heels

Arguably he won't be the first comedian to do it. But Boris Johnson isn't a professional stand-up.

Dressed in a black coat, fabulously high stiletto heels and bright red lipstick, Eddie has been walking through Halesowen town centre to boost the campaign of Labour candidate Stephanie Peacock in a seat where the Tory majority is a marginal 2,023 votes.

He holds court afterwards in the Rio Lounge and Bar and takes questions from Labour supporters. The first thing they want to know is how he walks in those heels.

"I've been road testing different ones. But by the time I run for election in five years they might be slightly lower."

He has been backing the Labour party since he was at school.

And he has clearly learned the diplomatic art of politics, particularly when he is asked who he believes was Labour's best leader.

"I've now played 27 countries on my world tour which, I believe, is the most extensive tour in comedy. And people do ask me 'what's your favourite this, what's your favourite that'," he says.

"I actually don't go in for that. As soon as you start doing that you get into favourites and whatever it gets awkward. I'm getting into politics because I'm running in five years time and I just want one of us to be running it and running it well.

"People say do you want this job or that job and I'm not really too worried about who is in charge as long as they're doing a good job.

"Nelson Mandela and Abraham Lincoln. Those are my two talismen if you want what I'm trying to hold in my head.

"They had very difficult jobs to do in very different ways. That's what I try to hold in my head."

Given the choice, would he rather be in Parliament or running London?

"I'd rather be Member of Parliament and Mayor of London at the same time actually," he says, to laughs from the people listening.

"No, it's been done twice now, or rather it's just about to be done by Boris.

"No, that was a joke I was being frivolous then. I'd just be happy to be either. People say it will be a good fit for me to be Mayor of London because I have a big personality. I don't know why they think that

"But Member of Parliament, I would like to see Parliament working, and I am a transgender person and if I'm making a maiden speech in Parliament, that would be an interesting day for humanity, just because I was a very scared kid 30 years ago when I came out.

"And I need to know how that works. I need to know how politics works. You can't know until you're inside it. I've done things in a different way. I've run marathons, toured in German and French. But I don't know what I can do in politics.

"I'd like to do things differently and in a positive way. Maybe it's too complicated. Maybe it's too tricky.

"I need to try my damnedest to do positive things."

What would he change first?

"Ooh, I don't know," he says. "Doing policy five years out, that's a bit tricky. If I was Mayor of London, transport and housing are the two things that are most worrisome to people in London. Prices are going through the roof. But you don't have a huge amount of powers as mayor. You're more a cheerleader.

"But I encourage people to be entrepreneurs, to make things and build things, but also to have a safety net.

Eighty to ninety per cent of the world is centre, centre-left. But I'm a radical centrist. I will try to make things happen if people elect me. Because I need to get nominated and elected. I could fall at any one of these hurdles."