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"Harvey previously stood as a similar character, Lord Buckethead, but was forced to create a new character due to a dispute with the filmmaker Todd Durham, who owns the Buckethead character" [1].
(The videos on this website are worth the watch. Hilarious, of course. But also...Binface conjugates Latin to Sky News, and not just as a bit. I don't know how I feel about the British comedy candidate outclassing half of the American elected leadership–and a good fraction of its industrial leadership–on IQ.)
Excerpt from linked page:
> I came to Earth in 2017 and stood against Prime Minister Theresa May (as ‘Lord Buckethead’). Then in 2018, after an unfortunate battle on the planet Copyright, I rewspawned in my true form as Count Binface.
> I don't know how I feel about the British comedy candidate outclassing half of the American elected leadership–and a good fraction of its industrial leadership–on IQ.)
Your entire political system has flirted with anti-intellectualism for over a century; it used to pretend to be uneducated simpletons to appeal to the electorate (witness, e.g. the folksy “ahhm just a simple mayynn” gurning schtick of Senator John Kennedy, who literally fakes his accent and demeanour despite having a sharp legal mind and Oxford degree, and who could likely conjugate latin; he is following a path trodden by Bill Clinton) and now it has refined the concept such that politicians can actually be simpletons for real: Tommy Tuberville isn’t faking being thick and neither is Markwayne Mullin.
I don’t know about conjugating latin specifically (I used to be able to do this but the memory has faded) but the standard of literacy in the UK was excellent.
We do now have a fairly similar literacy skills profile in the young as the USA and Canada, but unlike in the USA, older adults outperform them, partly because more of us were exposed to the (now essentially eliminated) selective education (grammar school) system that favoured advanced literacy.
We are thus as I understand it unique in having (ETA: or having had) declining literacy; it is declining to the US/Canada level rather than below it but it is rather sad.
Binface went to good schools and has an Oxford classics degree, I think. Much of our political class did. More recently they will have done the PPE degree (which is more or less training to be a politician). He is in that sense as “establishment” as Farage, but more importantly he is a product of that fading system. So it is this you are observing; writers, politicians, actors often come from that declining tradition.
Side note: even many politicians from a non-traditional background have gone through this path at some level; the famously working-class deputy prime minister John Prescott studied at Ruskin College, which was a college associated with the trade union movement based in and sort of orbiting Oxford University that specialised in providing PPE-type education to aspiring politicians from working class backgrounds (originally founded, incidentally, by two Americans)
I think it's so interesting he was a scriptwriter for "The Thick of It", a satirical comedy about British politics
>>But also...Binface conjugates Latin to Sky News
He studied Classics at Oxford. He'd be in trouble if he couldn't.
Why would Todd Durham have issues with a Lord Buckethead doing his thing in another country and continent, but apparently not with a guitar player named Buckethead in the United States?
Note that the ability to conjugate Latin does not correlate with good character, despite what the English public school system would have you think. Most famous example of that is of course Enoch Powell.
It is however true that you're only allowed to say true, intelligent things in British politics if you're a joke candidate. Jester's privilege. Binface has driven the rightwing press mad because he's the last threat to their darling candidate, so they're now trying to smear him as if he were a serious candidate. Which he is not. The end result is very funny.
I wish Count Binface all the best for the Clacton by-election.
Edited to add: Some of my favourite commentary around this by-election is along the lines of:
A fundamentally un-serious candidate with no coherent policies or political experience running against Count Binface.
Vote Bin, not rubbish!
I, for one, am ready for FFS1 & nationalising Adele.
I see from the comments here many Americans especially are confused by this situation. Some background might make help.
Farage seems to have broken Parliamentary Rules (laid down after the cash for questions scandal in the 1990s) by accepting large sums of money as gifts - but without declaring them, something all MPs are required to do for any gift. But worse, one of these gifts came from a convicted crypto felon.
The Parliamentary standards committee seemed likely to suspend him or order a recall by-election as a result.
Nigel's aim in preempting this near-inevitability was apparently to use the media spotlight the by-election would give him to dominate the summer headlines and present himself as a man-of-the-peeps martyr-rebel under mean & outrageous establishment persecution (rather than just the rich little chancer he is, on the make, with the murkiest of murky connections). If he could hammer this impression into the public imagination, they'd then be deaf to any subsequent findings from the Parliamentary Standards Committee.
In other words he thought this little manoeuvre could turn a damaging problem and weakness into a strength. Unfortunately for Nige, the other parties understood this, & instead have left him to play all summer long with the jokers and silly parties, looking like a laughingstock.
So as you see, there's nothing anti-democratic about it. If he wins, he will still face the suspension and recall election that was coming anyway. But as part of procedure - not on the terms he's trying to set with this little stunt.
|suspend him or order a recall by-election as a result.
I believe that while the Parliamentary Standards Committee can order a suspension, the prospect of a recall election is not due to the committee ordering it but rather sufficient electors in the Member's constituency petitioning for it.
The recall election only becomes a possibility if any suspension is greater than ten days in length.
And we know what you all are thinking: only £5m, how pathetic.
I get you. Farage is still learning, on his frequent visits to the US. Give him time.
We definitely are the weaker and more pathetic side of the Atlantic when it comes to corruption in our politics at the moment. We do bow to your superiority in this area.
You can add to this that the other parties running against Farage don't really have an upside. Reform is leading the polls somehow and he's quite likely to win - which would give him an argument to say "the voters have decided, the whole thing about the finance rules is a witch-hunt". And frankly even if he loses, he can cry foul play about how he was hounded out.
What should happen is the investigation to run its course. The whole resignation is just an attempt to divert attention from it.
Amusingly, I find it more likely Farage would lose to Count Binface than to the mainstream candidates. To win, you need merely the most votes, not more than 50%. If the "not Farage" vote gets split between Labour, Greens, Lib Dems and Conservatives, he might eke out a win. But if anyone who doesn't like Farage just needs to vote Count Binface, it might actually happen.
The other parties are terrified that the immense popularity of Farage will land him the role of PM, so they're creatively interpreting their Parliamentary Rules to accuse Farage of violating them, which he has not done. It's the same sort of lawfare that Trump and Le Pen have been a victim of. Override the will of the people by finding an excuse to oust a popular politician that they see as a serious threat to their power. So much for democracy...
Why is it not a violation of Parliamentary Rules to conspire to create a false candidate in an election?
I have so many questions...
I wonder how the legalities of this work. If people write in "Count Binface" or if that's the name on the ballot, then if he wins, does that mean Jonathan David Harvey (the actual name of the guy who plays him) is elected? Does Count Binface count as an alias? If not, he required to use that name while in office - or more precisely, is he not considered a member if he goes by his own name?
If he goes into the parliament building without his costume, it would be a bit awkward if, say, they were required to address him by his Count Binface alias.
Or, perhaps they wouldn't care too precisely about the naming aspect, since everyone knows who he is, but politics is vicious and I'm sure there are plenty who would use any possible legal maneuver to keep him out of parliament. Surely there are laws to handle these kinds of discrepancies around someone's identity... right? Laws that could get him kicked out?
If he actually wins, would he try to do some serious good or would he keep the joke going? Should he actually prepare a serious "if I actually win the election" policy list? It would conflict with his joke list since he would be asked more questions about the real one. Or would he just have one big mixed list split 50/50 between jokes and serious ideas?
I hope he wins the upcoming election. Won’t but one can hope…
The actual politician he’s standing against is an asshole
Novelty candidates sometimes get elected, e.g. Stuart Drummond.
> Drummond immediately decided to concentrate on politics and ceased being H'Angus; he was quoted as saying, "I am Stuart Drummond, I am the Mayor of Hartlepool, not the monkey." Drummond was re-elected in 2005, more than doubling his vote (up to over 16,000)
Related mini-discussion the other day:
Farage left fighting a trash can as the UK populist's election gamble backfires
There's a long tradition in the UK of comedy candidates, notably the Monster Raving Loony Party.
There's even some talk of a potential Loony-Bin alliance.
£3-6 croissants are a travesty and £1.10 price capping is the most sensible thing I've heard for decades. And that hand dryer is in an AWFUL position
More seriously, he actually seems like a decent guy. This is a really touching and personal history which gets into his motivations and his life https://archive.ph/61Ecw
> I’m an intergalactic space warrior and leader of the Recyclons from planet Sigma IX.
Ok you have my vote.
This person is hilarious, for non-UK people who are wondering what this is, this is a joke candidate for an MP who is getting a lot of attention because of the political system in the UK not working very well. This YouTube video has sort of started this off recently and made him go viral
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MCCVt8IhJkA&pp=ygUHQmluZmFjZQ%...
I don't understand why the mainstream is celebrating the total collapse of any meaningful political opposition to populists. This kind of fluffed-up 2010's style optimism campaign is exactly how the establishment lost control in 2016 in both the US and the UK.
I think it's sad that Binface is the only one even attempting to engage in democracy at this point. He's a satire but he's also, seemingly, the only legitimate opposition that populists face. That should be concerning and embarrassing, but no one has learned anything over the past 10 years.
So, what happens when Binface loses? Are they just going to try to put Farage in prison like they're doing with the other populists? That'll surely help.
And if he does somehow win, what then? Doesn't that also prove that populism is the only viable strategy? Either way people are celebrating their own defeat.
The Ipsos poll cited in the first image was a survey of 1,000 uk citizens 18+. It wasn't a poll of 1,000 people in Clacton. It's meaningless and I'm surprised they used it.
As an American, I'm mildly jealous of the Brits' usage of "bin" for garbage cans. It's so succinct as to be appropriately dismissive, while we seemingly sanctify the idea with complex terms like "Wastebasket," "Trash/Garbage Can," or (worst of all) "Trash Receptacle."
"Binface" wouldn't be nearly as funny using an American term.
It’s nice to have a story that makes me laugh and smile about politics. It’s been a long, long time.
A contest between on one side a comedian with joke policies and on the other side Count Binface!
Binface certainly differs with Farage on the virtues of Brexit. Here he is at the Oxford Union https://youtu.be/0Vlew9R2s2A?t=66
If you are interested in a pretty good political discussion - this is worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV5E2UYwUkk
In case you're wondering why there's so much interest in the Count, the reason is his opponent.
Nigel Farage is a populist gobshite. He's in trouble because he refused to declare a £5 million donation from a crypto billionaire, Christopher Harborne. MPs are expected to declare any "gifts" that might sway them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_UK_financial_allegation...
After Farage took that "gift", he became an MP and lobbied the Bank of England to adopt a stablecoin that Christopher Harborne was heavily invested in.
Recently, the press found years and years of undeclared dodgy donations to Farage and his party, many from convicted fraudster "Posh" George Cottrell, author of book How to Launder Money.
Sleazy MPs who take bribes are investigated, can be reprimanded, can be recalled by their constituents.
Farage is trying to get ahead of the curve by resigning now, then competing in the election for his successor. He's hoping to pause the investigation into his finances, and wants to pull the populist move of "The People support me!"
Every major party sees this trap and have boycotted Nigel's self-election. They'll fight him in the next election, after he's recalled for sleaze.
Effectively he is standing unopposed... except for the joke candidates. And who better a joke candidate than a quick-witted comedian in a ridiculous outfit? £500 to rip the piss out of Farage for a month is a bargain.
The thing populists hate most is being ridiculed and not taken seriously. It really pricks their ego. Will Nigel spend summer arguing with a bin? Will Nigel lose to a bin? That's for the people of Clacton to decide.
With this much memery he would probably win the presidential election in the US.
While I appreciate how deservedly hated all of our politicians are, isn't it such a sad state of affairs that we can't find trustworthy folks to lead these critical institutions?
One of his policies is to build 1 affordable house - which is brilliant.
(In the US, his name would translate as Count Trash Can-Face or Count Garbage Can-Face.)
He doesn't happen to have an American twin? Would be urgently needed.
Glad to see he's recovered from his little flesh wound.
Is this the British equivalent of the American Vermin Supreme?
I would vote for a trashbin before Farage.
Even the favicon is great!
Reddit Moment
Farage is polarising. I think there is a genuine chance that tactical voters can rally behind a candidate who feasibly can get the votes. However, you have to remember this is an election for a representative of a constituency. The people in Clacton are voting for a candidate that will represent their needs in parliament. I don't think the left are going to vote for Binface as although it would be the biggest FU in history, the antidote to Farage-ism, it won't offer them change in their area - and won't give them a voice in parliament, which Farage has done.
Count Binface went to Oxbridge apparently, so if he gets in, he'll still be part of the establishment. Not really sure he's any wiser about working class life than Nigel Farage (being part of the Galactic aristocracy doesn't help much either.)
However, I did like his suggestions to build at least one affordable home and rename HS2, the FFS1.
Neither Binface nor Farage have any answers for the problems the UK appears to be facing; this election feels like something specifically designed to create material for viewers of Have I Got News For You[0] to laugh at.
From The Atlantic: "The [UK's] output per person is now only just above that of Mississippi, America’s poorest state - and that slight lead is only achieved thanks to London. Outside the capital, in places where tourists do not visit, living standards fall well below Mississippi’s"[1]
According to the IEA, the UK has the highest industrial electricity prices of the 25 IEA countries reporting data.[2]
Hinkley Point C is routinely described as the most expensive nuclear power station ever built, four times the average for South Korean plants. Guaranteed pricing originally £92.50/MWh (2012 prices), now equivalent to around £133/MWh (2025 prices), inflation-linked for 35 years...[3]
HS2 is consistently ranked as the most expensive high-speed rail on the planet.[4]
[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mkw3
[1] How Britain Became as Poor as Mississippi - A case study in self-sabotage https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/07/uk-productivity...
[2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68da5e91dadf7...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...
A serious candidate could probably defeat Farage but they are hiding behind this Binface thing and present it as a smart move. Cowards.