In April 1978 King stood for parliament as an independent in the Epsom and Ewell by-election, calling himself the Royalist party. He gained 2,350 votes. A year later he decided to leave the music industry and closed UK Records. He wrote to the charts committee of the British Phonographic Industry in August 1979 alleging that the lower levels of the charts reflected "clever promotion and marketing rather than good records", and suggesting that only information about the top 30 should be made available. The idea was that this would force programmers to base their airplay decisions on something other than the lower charts.