back

by delichon·2d ago·view on hn ↗
Some of his planks:

  * Cut your taxes, and raise everyone else’s.
  * Nationalize Adele.  
  * Build at least one affordable house.
  * Hold a referendum on whether Pluto should regain its planet status.
I see the attraction.
15 comments
Please don't forget one of his longest standing and most important planks:

* move the hand dryer in the Crown & Treaty pub in Uxbridge to a more sensible location.

This YouTube video shows just how dire the situation is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbartLXCYZo

I’m not even from the UK and I know it need to be fixed before the situation gets worse.
We spoke earlier to local chancer Elliot Plunge who told us "this is the one thing we did not want to happen"
Like it gets moved to in the urinal itself? Indeed, that could kick off a world war.
Oh he's left handed? Ma man!
Some of the winner's planks:

  * Pretending that an election should decide the result of a corruption trial.
Yeah, Binface jokes are more attractive to me too.
Do we have any English lawyers here who can comment on whether it may actually be legal to nationalise Adele (the person) under English law? ChatGPT says it may be possible through an act of parliament, but I’m unsure whether I can trust ChatGPT in this case.
Yes, Parliament has absolute and unlimited power (except binding future Parliaments, and maybe arguably some matters relating to Scotland): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty_in_t...

(not a lawyer)

Indeed which is why "taking back sovereignty" as an argument by the pro-Brexit folks was a bit disingenuous (if I'm been kind).

It would also require us leaving a whole bunch of international treaties though since "Nationalising a pop singer" kinda breaches a few of them.

Not a Brit, not a lawyer...

The promise could be re-interpreted in some funny ways. For example, Count Binface didn't specify when nationalizing Adele would occur.

They could create another[0] special case in UK copyright law with a minor twist: Instead of eventually entering the public domain, the copyright of Adele's works would transfer to the UK government which would donate any proceeds to a charity that builds affordable homes.

Silly, but it'd mean two promises kept.

[0] https://neverlandofficial.com/discover/peter-pan-copyright/

Or which Adele he'd nationalize.
A simple bill of attainder would do it, but she'd have recourse to the ECHR to appeal it, which would in practice bind the UK. If we thought she wasn't going to be chill with it, we'd first need to withdraw from the ECHR. As it happens, withdrawing from the the ECHR is a prime Farage objective.
Human rights only apply to those what are willing to defend them.

What’s Europe going to do, send in a deal team to extract Adele?

Parliament theoretically has unlimited power, practically I think this stops short of reintroducing actual slavery. Lawyers would be busy arguing in international courts; but hopefully 50℅ of the electorate might actually bother to vote.
International courts? Who cares about those?

North Korea? China? Russia? Israel? Gaza? Iran? The USA?

What’s are international courts going to do about it? Gaol Britain? Apply sanctions?

(Obviously the MP for Clacton has the power to talk sturnly to someone with actual power in the councel over the bin collection schedule; the is no plausable way to deliver any of their pledges)
What is 50c/o? That “℅” is not a percent sign.
Lawyer here.[0] Definitely possible.[1]

[0] not a lawyer [1] what does “nationalise” even mean?

Typically, the government takes over a company.

The shareholders or owners may or may not receive compensation.

Presumably a normal(?) interpretation would be that the British government uses whatever eminent domain law it has and it takes over Adels copyright on all her songs and gives her whatever the fair market value of the catalog is.

But because this is a joke candidate, could be anything.

A joke on the goverment nationalising the railways and the debate around whether we should nationalise water companies.
Take into public ownership.
Long list here: https://meettheuk.substack.com/p/a-complete-list-of-count-bi...

I could get behind most of them, actually ... were I to live in the UK.

i like that he ironically hedges this one

> A promise not to accept £5 million gifts from crypto billionaires (on Earth).

I liked this one:

- European countries to be invited to join the United Kingdom, creating a new ‘union of Europe’, if you will. (2024)

Surely his post popular policy has to be :

* capping the price of a 99 flake ice cream at 99p

He was challenged on this by Alastair Campbell who asked him how much this will cost the exchequer

His immediate response.

“Well, if the exchequer wants a 99 flake, it’ll cost them 99p.”

Yes. Unless you're a male resident of Uxbridge of drinking age.
Every election should have a funny absurdist person like this absorbing all the blank and null votes to give the other candidates more incentives to convince the electorate.
Back when I was in college, student union elections had a candidate called RON on each vote. RON was Re—Open Nominations. Basically “none of the above”, which would cause a restart of the election for than role if it got the most votes.
It's mostly negative polarization driving things these days, so I don't think that idea makes as much sense as it once did.
In one general election back in the 90s, there was a candidate called "Nun of the Above".

They put them at the bottom of the candidate list on the voting slip. Good to see the election officials had a sense of humor.

In this particular case, the main stream parties did not take part (i.e. field candidates) because the current MP (Farage) resigned just to retake his own seat - basically trying to distract from his dodgy dealings with crypto bros and convicted fraudsters.

I would have voted Count Binface too (as the least absurd candidate).

> Nationalize Adele

I'm old and out of touch, my brain confused Adele with Alizée and thought that was a little aggressive for a foreign policy.

>nationalise Adele

Well it would certainly make her less productive

Your brain is spot on. This would make much more sense.
I've been trying to think of a UK musical act that works as well for "Nationalize Adele" and I've got nothing.
Back in the day, maybe "Nationalize Freddie Mercury".
Some discussion about the manifesto pledges in this interview, which is utter binface gold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRBh7uGwxmU

some extras

    * apply nurses pay to MPs
    * bring back ceefax
    * rename london bridge after phoebe waller
The history of ceefax is worth reading when you have a spare moment. If you want to go further down the rabbit hole, there's Prestel with its 1980s "electronic mailbox".
Apply MP wages to nurses is actually a solid idea I recon.
Cap the price of Wigan kebabs at £2
You missed the biggest one:

   * Not Nigel Farage
Binface's most important non-platform items are:

  * Take millions in funding from shady crypto-billionaires.
  * Use anti-immigrant demagogy and lies.
Ich bin ein binliner
honestly he should have won on his main if unstated plank, "not be nigel farage"