So this is how democracy dies. Not in darkness, as the Washington Post would have it, but with a man with a big bin on his face squaring off against Nigel Farage in a neglected seaside town.
British politics has long been notable for its zany election candidates, and sometimes they have even been amusing. I remember scoring a viral tweet myself, several years ago, when one of the many receptacle-headed candidates popped up in some ludicrously incongruous moment, as they are wont to do.
But the newfound fame of Count Binface, following the news that he may be Nigel Farage’s sole competitor in the Clacton by-election, has shone a light on this cartoon villain’s slightly less innocent origins.
Binface is actually Jon Harvey, a man with an Oxford degree in classics who has written for shows like Have I Got News for You and the Thick of It. Thus, what seems like a bit of harmless fun starts to give a whiff of that now well-established phenomenon, the Regime Comedian – a term I can never remember if I invented or stole from Graham Linehan.
In light of these revelations, the Count begins to more closely resemble the abomination that is Led By Donkeys. The latter, by consistently avoiding satire in favour of grim ideology, has ended up ignoring a flailing, scandal-ridden Labour Government to focus almost exclusively on whether Liz Truss’s short lifespan as Prime Minister is in some ways comparable to that of a
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I would love to know what he hopes to achieve. It only kicks the financial investigation down road, giving his opponents time to dig even more dirt. And now this bielection is just a joke they must be running their hands with glee. Either there is or there isn’t financial irregularity and basically it will either propel Reform into power or we get another decade of labour.. Having a silly bielection will achieve sweet Danny adams.
HIHBFY
My God. Do people still watch that shite? We junked our TV 20 years ago and had long given up on it and the Odious Hislop.
The BBC just hand out sinecures to failed “comedians”. Job for life
Endorsed by Badenoch who is an anchor baby dumped on us by her mother. That’s the state of the Liberal…ooh, sorry Conservative Party now.
On the day the other parties said they were not standing they revealed the Uniparty in no uncertain terms, even the phrases used in their statements were identical. When I discovered how much employment the BBC gives Harvey I immediately thought woke BBC candidate.
I wouldn’t call it “twee”, I’d call it sinister. I remember Ian Hislop openly admitting that he and his ilk were now The Establishment. The problem being that the likes of Hislop and all the busloadashitthrowers couldn’t “Establish” a card house, let alone a society, they’re the “Destructionment”; encouraged to nurture a rebellious streak as if that was the only way to get things done, and now they’re at the top of the hill they’re cheerfully tearing down the castle that houses them. Idiots, all.
Am I the only one who looked at the headline and thought it was about some picturesque place in Scotland?
Why do people on here not think that Mr Farage is doing this to try and avoid being forced to face a recall petition? He didn’t declare a donation/sum of money that he should have and it’s not the first time. We are sceptics for heaven’s sake, yet we don’t seem to be very sceptical of things people on ‘our’ side do or say.
It is, however, totally wrong that family members have been brought into this by the MSM et al.
While I agree or did agree with a lot of what he has said in the past, he says things to please and has no intention of following through with most of them. He is only in it for personal gain. For example, after the last GE, he said that any MPs wishing to defect would be very welcome, but they must face a by election. None of them has. He said he would hold an inquiry into the Rape Gang issue and then did nothing about it. Reform policies keep changing, being tweaked etc. What does Mr Farage actually stand for? What underpins his philosophy of life etc.? It seems that he just wants to be popular… Read more »
In answer to your question, because if the Parliamentary Committee finds against him then it is possible a by-election will result whether or not one has already been held. So what he is doing is not trying to avoid a by-election. If he were trying to avoid a by-election why has he instigated one?
“He didn’t declare a donation he should have.” Well with you on the case having decided the issue, why is there a Parliamentary investigation? They could have just asked you.
Quite.
I’m glad you said this because listening to Farage’s speech I was struck that he didn’t actually pinpoint facts about the funds he received that I would like to have heard about. Instead he glossed over that by repeating “ I’ve done nothing wrong” and went straight into decrying the pile on against him by the Establishment.
I agree with Reform’s stance on immigration and I listen regularly to their members on GBNews. I think it’s a strange move to resign amidst the furore as it looks petulant. Why not wait til the investigation is carried out? Because if it rules against him, having been re elected by the people of Clacton will surely mean little. The Uniparty will just say the plebs there were misled by a snake oil merchant etc.
Farage’s argument is that the 5million was for his personal security prior to his standing for election. There is no denying that he needs security given the threats against him. We don’t yet know if he has done wrong since all we have are allegations and a parliamentary investigation. However I am starting to suspect that the outcome of 5million investigation is going in Farage’s favour since the establishment are now alleging further financial wrong doing. They are running scared and this to me looks like lawfare.
If Count Binface gets elected will he be able to wear his armour and helmet in the Commons chamber? How will the rest of the Commons react to his maiden speech which I assume will take the piss out of them all?
And while the Uniparty scum squeal and whine over the cost of a by election the silence is deafening over holding the Makerfield by election to crown Prince Andrew and then the even higher cost of the Manchester mayor election. And as mentioned below Prince Andrew was one of a long long line of lefties calling for an election when the Tories changed leaders. You do wish just once a interviewer would totally skewer one of them on this hypocrisy.
I think in this case HYPOCRISY should be in upper case.
So Capt Binface is the proxy for Labour, Tories, Lib Dems.
Aha: the Unibin Party. How apt – full of garbage.
“Nigel Farage is the son of a stockbroker who went to Dulwich College and then follows his dad into the city, gets gifted millions, promotes crypto and gold bullion, been in politics for decades – he IS the establishment.”
No that is free market capitalism not your Marxist-Socialist Establishment, Mr Sopel. (Who he?)
It will be interesting to learn what the turnout is in Clacton. The lower it is, the more sceptical normal people are about the political system – perhaps as low as typical local government elections.
I didn’t realise the world was divided between normal and abnormal people. Can you explain what you mean by this in this context?
Prolly something to do with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vHl-mSn99E
Well done Nick Dixon for bringing all of this to our attention and shame on the Telegraph for going along with the MSM narrative that this guy is just a bit wacky.
“Others, such as abolishing the House of Lords”
Quite. His policy should be to abolish the Commons not the Lords at the very least. He’s a Count and could govern with Sir Kier.
Some people might say that Count contains one letter too many.
And return the Lords to be for hereditary peers only as they have a far better sense of duty to our country than the failed political slime that make up the majority with Lord Call Me Dave being the ultimate insult to the people.
I always liked the idea of the House of Lords as a debating chamber for grown-ups, filled with people who were able to look at the bigger picture and not be blinkered by narrow party political allegiances. People whose job it was to assess proposed legislation, point out ways in which it might not work, or ways in which it might do more harm than good, and then get the Commons to redraft. Perhaps it never really worked that way, but I’d like to think it did.
Claire Fox is always battling for common sense in the Lords, she speaks her mind and attends regularly putting free speech at centre of everything. If the Lords hadn’t opposed the Assisted Dying Bill another ill conceived law would be on the books.
But we know nothing about this person. Is he even British? Is it always the same person in the bin?
The onus is on the candidate to ensure that they meet the criteria to be a candidate.From the guidance web page:
“Qualifications and disqualifications for standing for electionIn order to stand as a candidate you must ensure that you meet the necessary qualifications and be sure that you are not disqualified. This section sets out the qualifications and disqualifications for standing for election.
It is your responsibility to ensure that you are qualified to stand and are not subject to any disqualifications. Neither the Returning Officer nor the Electoral Commission can confirm this to you. If you are in doubt about your eligibility you should seek legal advice.”
We now know he is Jon harvey and he is a BBC scriptwriter for that fount of unbiased political “wit” for “comedy” program HIGNFY. We also know that theequally balanced millionaire and Green scammer Dale Vince is to bankroll his campaign.
Perhaps the main parties, in choosing not to field a candidate, are showing that they have no respective cases to make? Just ‘playing the man’.
Meanwhile, an investigation is starting into donations received by Robert Jenrick when he was campaigning for the Conservative leadership. Was such an investigation always on the cards, or is it only since he moved from the Conservatives to Reform that there has been an appetite to investigate? Another smear against Reform from the rattled establishment?
They are getting rattled and using the same tactics that saw them lose the Referendum and saw Trump win big in America.
I expect the win for Associated Newspapers by a no bias Judge has also unsettled them.
Football rule 1: if you can’t get the ball away from the man, get the man away from the ball.
Not only no cases to make, no prospect of winning.
I’ve got nothing against Binface standing in numerous elections, if he wants to keep loosing his deposit it’s his choice how he wastes his money.
More importantly when Sunak became PM Burnham was one of many Liebour politicians saying that Sunak should call a GE and get a mandate from the people, he’s now been shown to be a hypocrite by becoming PM (whenever this happens) without a mandate from the electorate.
I fully understand why Farage resigned in order to allow his constituents to say if they think the donations he’s received matter more than his policies. It’s pure cowardice that the other parties aren’t standing against him, they know they’d loose and Farage would of proven his point that the majority of people care far more about policies than Westminster bubble politics.
If Burnham had a shred of decency he’d call an election and let the people decide if they prefer an opportunistic slime ball or someone who’s been given large sums of money as PM.
I’ve voted for Reform a couple of times now, but I fear Nige may well have screwed this one up. I can’t believe he didn’t anticipate that the other parties would simply boycott this by-election.
See my comment above. They have exposed the fact that they are acting in concert with each other. A clear act that exposes the single party state we’ve been living under. Further, it exposes the fact that they have no answer to Reform, if they did they would stand against Farage and beat him, they know they can’t, thereby showing fear.
There are so many points to argue that the existing parties are duplicitous and deceitful (enter expletive). I hope that reform have the ammunition prepared to expose the glaring hypocrisy of them all.
Totally agree- great points well made
Exactly – Farage needs to double down on this and call it out for what it is, clearly they have zero belief in their own manifesto, OR they are sure they’ll get totally and utterly beat… either way some mileage in pointing that out I think…
Unhappily you may be right. He has obviously been goaded beyond what any reasonable person should be expected to endure. A ‘win’ for Alastair Campbell, the BBC and Binface et al. May they relish the fruits of their victory. I fear that – referencing David Betz – very few of us will.
According to an interview given by Sia Yusef, this possibility was considered – so yes it was anticipated.
Binface is to humour what Banksy is to art: a talentless establishment approved rebel.
I was wondering why the BBC seem to like him, we now know why.
But it’s interesting that the whilst denying that the uni-party exists, Labour and the Tories have been joined by the Greens, LibDems(not) and others, clearly showing that our suspicions of the existence of the uni-party may in fact be well founded by their refusal to stand in the election. I wonder how Farage will exploit this glaring opportunity to expose them for what they are.
The speed with which they all announced they would not contest Clayton suggests prior consultation and agreement. Uniparty usually takes longer to chose coffee. Starmer would call for a report. Badenock would check if her large left block would allow her to decide.
Vote Reform.
EB, I think it is more likely that the LimpDumbs, Greens and Liebore lost their deposit at the last Clacton-on-Sea by-election. They’re just not wasting their money on a contest they will never win.
Interesting fact: the Labour wonk was a lad from East London and advised the local newspaper that “I visited Clacton a few years ago and had fish and chips on the beach”. Amazing!
I’m not sure what by-election you’re referring to. If you mean the 2014 by-election when Douglas Carswell won for UKIP then Labour retained their deposit with 11.2% of the vote. LDs and Greens did lose their deposit.
In the 2024 general election LDs and Greens did lose their deposit and it makes sense for them not to waste their money there (apart from a little thing called democracy) but Labour retained theirs with 16.2% of the valid votes cast.
The Labour, LD and Green vote combined did not beat the Conservative Party vote and would have come in third if they’d fielded a combined candidate.
Suggests desperation to me.
Binhead is perfect for representing the ‘anti-fascists’ and regime parties in Clacton.
Why not elect him to the Commons where he might start a fashion trend.
Anti’Fascists? You OK? My old man fought against real Fascists.
Utter nonsense