Can Count Binface Save us from Farage?
Now that a bit more is known about Count Binface the more he seems a sensible and reasonable man.
At the moment only Count Binface, the Rejoin the EU party, the Monster Raving Loonies Party and Reclaim, which is led by the dreadful Laurence Fox have announced that they will stand against Farage. While Farage is a firm favourite at the bookies, he is drifting.
The election is likely to take place on 13th August, a week after the date proposed by Reform, so I think that indicates that they wanted as short a campaign as possible.
The question has to be
1) to what extent can Farage be discredited and
2) how many Clacton voters will then vote against Farage.
There are five weeks until the election: what do you think or recommend?
At the moment only Count Binface, the Rejoin the EU party, the Monster Raving Loonies Party and Reclaim, which is led by the dreadful Laurence Fox have announced that they will stand against Farage. While Farage is a firm favourite at the bookies, he is drifting.
The election is likely to take place on 13th August, a week after the date proposed by Reform, so I think that indicates that they wanted as short a campaign as possible.
The question has to be
1) to what extent can Farage be discredited and
2) how many Clacton voters will then vote against Farage.
There are five weeks until the election: what do you think or recommend?
Comments
Being a writer for a show that repeatedly platformed Farage is a bit on the nose. It's a particular kind of twee that has very limited appeal, but which most tedious people in the world will insist is playing a blinder.
You mean that there's nothing particularly brilliant about doing a satirical comedy show that mocks Farage, but a lotta pseudo-intellectual types will think it makes the writer a political mastermind?
As the root cause of the Clacton by-election was Nigel Farage’s attempt to delay investigations, he alone should be held responsible. If others want to stand then that reflects our democracy.
Not so much that that they 'mocked Farage', but more that the end result was to confirm his status as a notable figure without actually puncturing his pretensions.
There is an LRB article I used to link to whenever this topic came up, but they've since ended the policy of X number of free articles per month, so I'll quote Michael Frayn as quoted in their article:
I think the comment by @chrisstiles explains this better than I could. There's a difference between political comedy that's actually satirical and political comedy that's about reinforcing the status quo. In the UK the journalist class has done untold damage to democracy, and Count Binface isn't an actual outsider due to being part of said journalist class. This isn't saying that CB and say, Boris Johnson (who very much took advantage of the same kind of role of political clown via Have I Got News For You!) are somehow the same or that CB is as bad a person as Farage, but that you can't claim to be a protest vote against a man you platformed on your TV show.
As Conservative MP, Jesse Norman, said in the Commons this morning: "...[this by-election] appears to be a choice between a novelty comedy act with no real policies, and Count Binface."
Though one may start in comedy, you never know what someone may be really capable of in politics. Just think of the stand up comedian who did the Ukrainian voiceover for Paddington: Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Thanks.
Yeah, assuming I understand what Frayn is saying, I've thought the same thing for a long time about George Carlin's supposedly iconoclastic political humour.
Is basically just a hipsterized version of the standard armchair rant "They're all a buncha fat-cat just lining their pockets", which on the face of it is apolitical, and can just as easily be turned against the left as the right(*).
Back to Fargage, maybe it was on Have I Got News For You!, where the hosts purported to interview him, but then sprung a mock guessing-game on him called something like "Stupid or fascist?", which was just an excuse to read a bunch of offensive statements by his party's candidates in his presence, presumably to laugh at his embarrassment. Farage just laughed along rather ostentatiously, and the YouTube comments included a lotta stuff like "They thought they were gonna humiliate him, but he was too smart to take the bait."
(*) Carlin did do more partisan, issue-focused humour that took sides, but that doesn't seem to be what everyone likes to quote.
Have a look at him on Newsnight.
This.
In my experience, though, the arts-to-politics pipeline is not a particularly well-traveled one, and I have to think there's a reason for that.
Off the top of my head, I can only think of Ronald Reagan, Fred Grandy(Gopher from Love Boat), Vaclav Havel, Mario Vargas Llosa(failed), Al Franken, the clown in Italy who ran for that Five Star Party(or whatever it was called), and Zelenskyy.
Stacks of lawyers, business owners and professional politicians now represent the people and I’m not sure any profession prepares one adequately for Parliament or similar roles. It’s a matter of attitude or a calling.
Ah, yes. How could I forget.
My grandfather was a career soldier who fought throughout WW2. I think he would have appreciated anyone fighting fascism in any way, including making it look utterly ridiculous.
In my view Farage too often has everything going his own way including soft pedalling by client journalists, and due to his own hubris is going to be associated with a bin for the rest of his political life just like Truss is associated with a lettuce.
Berlusconi
I hope he wins.
I don't know much about the guy at all. But I'm taken to understand he's a comedian focused on political commentary? If so, just on cursory examination, I'd say there's a fairly good chance he would choose to sit, because it wouldn't be a plunge into any sort of alien environment for him, as it might be for a more typical joke candidate.
I feel pretty confident in saying that the answer would be "No" on both counts. But the causal connection might be reversed from your listing of the issues, since, based on my experience with joke candidates, they're the kinda people who'd LOVE to take their act into the actual legislature, but if they were allowed to.
According to wiki, in the 2024 by-election, Farage got about 46% of the vote in Clacton, with the vast majority of the rest going to parties leftward on the continuum, the Tories leading tha4 bloc with about 28%.
So, theoretically, if that 52% is still representative of the voters in 2026, and almost all of them dislike Farage so much that they'd be willing to vote for a joke candidate, yeah, Binface could win.
BUT...
I'm getting the impression that Binface is viewed by most people as left-wing. So Conservative Farage-haters might have to hold their noses extra tight to force themselves into casting a ballot for him.
I'm also guessing that, in a constituency where Farage got 46% of the vote two years ago, Reform is not too much of a social taboo to preclude the scrounging up of an extra six percent to block the left-wing comedian from winning.
Some of us got to discussing Binface's status as a professional comedian(rather than his status as a joke candidate), and someone gave Zelenskyy as an example of an entertainer who's done well in politics, and then I said I find it an odd career trajectory with few succesful examples, but listed off what I considered a tiny number of exceptions, and it went from there.
From what I can tell, Jackson's pre-electoral career was focused on campaigning for high-profile organizations, whereas Harvey's was mostly writing politically-oriented material for TV comedy.
IOW activist vs. writer. I suspect Jackson's background gave her more experience working with the institutional side of politics. Of all the other people listed so far, Al Franken would probably be the closest, background-wise, to Harvey, though Franken entered politics via more standard party channels.
I read the situation differently.
A factor that is difficult to quantify is the extent to which voters will stay at home. If Farage loses I don’t think it will be because the non-Faragists coalesce around Count Binface (although that will play a part) but the extent to which previous Reform/Farage voters don’t vote at all. That is often the cause of surprise results in by-elections although measuring voters at one election to non voters at a subsequent election can’t be simple.
Right. That's what I meant by "...if that 52% is still representative of the voters in 2026...". But I should have included Farage supporters behaving the same way as well, ie. the same numbers of them going to the polls and staying home, respectively.
I suspect Farage opposition will coalesce around Binface though - because of his high profile.
Turnout will be interesting. I know if I lived in Clayton I would be motivated to vote against Farage rather than stay home and I doubt I am alone in that. Whereas his supporters might assume his lead is too solid to lose so they don’t need to bother. Also, some will be genuinely pissed off with him about recent disclosures and are more likely to vote for a protest candidate to demonstrate this.
Which is a long winded way of saying that predicting a by-election result isn't easy, this one even harder. I don't think Count Binface has any chance of winning, but a significant share of the vote (25-30%) may be possible. What does that mean for Farage? It means he'll be back at Parliament where political opponents will make sure it's known that a large proportion of his constituents prefer a bin - that's a very different situation than most MPs where they had a smallish lead over other political party candidates. The real test will be when the PSC reports back on his failure to declare donations, with a possible lengthy suspension triggering a recall petition, we could be back to a Clacton by-election within a year ... when if the Count gets a big percentage of the vote this time everyone will go in knowing that the 46% from 2024 is vulnerable.
* the "offer" from Reform to pay for the by-election was always just a stunt. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the British electoral system will know that, other than the small deposits to stand, those running elections do not take money from political parties, campaign groups or any other private body. They need to be impartial and seen to be impartial.
I would amend that slightly to: it should be a job requiring work. Given the number of side jobs as TV hosts and columnists, let alone peddling cryptocurrency, it often gives the impression of being job that takes up as much time as you want it to.
My understanding is that members of the cabinet often have an arrangement with the MP of a neighbouring constituency to help out with constituent affairs. I don't think the PM attends his local surgery every Friday.
This is a very strange timeline indeed in which I find myself…
* Hand-drawn, not AI.
I never suggested that Farage as MP is any better.