When he was sixteen, Carman spent three weeks as a member of the National Front in September 1977. Writing about this in The Guardian in 2010, he commented "Becoming a member was done rashly, angrily, without any thought of what it meant, or of the consequences. It was a stupid decision, undertaken with one purpose: to annoy my father." He also said "When I eventually sat down and opened National Front News, my sense of euphoric defiance ended – very abruptly", as it was filled with "hate-filled articles" about Jewish people, Holocaust denial and black and Asian immigration into Britain. "Disgusted and shocked, my stomach churned, my thoughts ran wild. So this is what they believed. Oh God, what had I done? ... I immediately resigned from the NF, less than a month after joining."[5]
In 2005, he took part in ITV's Vote for Me television programme in which the public selected an individual to stand at the next general election, losing in the final to Rodney Hylton-Potts.[6]
He contested the 2011 Barnsley Central by-election for the Liberal Democrats, coming in sixth place out of nine, with 4.18% and therefore losing his deposit.[13][14] In an article in the Daily Mail, Carman was critical of some of the Barnsley electorate, stating that "diversity and difference are not welcome here"; he defended his comments when interviewed by Andrew Neil on the BBC's The Politics Show.[15]
