The Independent today released its list of the 50 most ludicrous Britons of 2008, and is asking readers to help choose the recipient of the Independent on Sunday Most Ludicrous Briton Award.

Among the many “eccentrics, oddballs, incompetents, fools and misfits” are those we’ve heard of on my side of the pond, such as Prince Andrew, Graham Norton, and Amy Winehouse, plus many whose fame hasn’t traveled well, such as “the smiling, laddish and authentically regional voices and faces of television show voting quackery” Ant & Dec, “the most important, the most beautiful, the most magical, saggy old cloth cat in the whole wide world” Bagpuss, and “professional Oirishman and horticultural paranoid” Diarmuid Gavin.

While the funniest title for a category was the tirade against “rap-rapping, pose-striking, knife-wielding, gun-toting, homophobic urban yoof,” there were two other nominees worth quoting here in full.

First came:

Middle-aged ‘Doctor Who’ fans

Prosecution: Harmless though such an enthusiasm may appear to be, a fondness for this festival of glitzy impossibilities is a warning sign that you could develop the kind of full-blown dementia so many psychiatrists have noted in science-fiction fans. Watch one too many episodes, and you are embarked on a slippery slope, at the bottom of which is collecting ‘Star Wars’ memorabilia and building your holidays around attending SciFiComCons at provincial Holiday Inns.

Defence: Sure, maybe anyone over 15 who’s interested in sci-fi is a bit suspect, but perhaps these are just parents who have successfully found a bonding point with their ‘Who’-obsessed kids. Lighten up.

And later down the list we find:

Harry Potter

Prosecution: The eponymous boy-hero of J K Rowling’s books has matured into one of the most smackable characters in fiction: bland, whiny, prudish, irritatingly good at sports and surrounded by toe-sucking sycophants. After book four, Harry’s “specialness” gets grating as he stumbles towards the privilege he was born for like any other private-school twit.

Defence: Yes, but he’s given pleasure to nearly half a billion readers around the world. Who else has put a book in hands that had hardly ever held one unless they were being tested on it the following day?

You can cast your vote here. British citizenship not required!