The Joker and the Fool

British politics became rather more interesting in the time I was living outside the country. Interesting in a bad way, mostly: there was Brexit, economic stagnation, the revolving door of prime ministers and, most hideously of all, the rising popularity of Nigel Farage. When I left for the Middle East in early 2013, Farage was still something of a joke candidate, a Harry Enfield character made flesh, best known for his love of fags and booze and for walking away from the wreckage of a plane crash virtually unscathed in 2010. The anti-Europe stuff was all kind of secondary, until 24 June 2016, the day after the Brexit referendum, when I woke up in Istanbul and opened the news from Britain to find a smug Farage leering back at me.

Brexit propelled Farage into the realm of serious politics, making him more influential than elected politicians. Once he was elected, as MP for Clacton-on-Sea in 2024, the once outlandish prospect that he might one day be prime minister seemed to be sharpening into a real possibility. Unfortunately for Farage, however, elected office comes with proper financial scrutiny, and it turns out that, when the heat is turned on him, he melts in front of the flame. Last month he resigned from office in a fit of pique over the questions being asked about the undeclared £5 million he received from Thai crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, and the additional funding his party received from aristocrat and convicted fraudster ‘Posh George’ Cottrell. Farage announced that he would be standing again in the resulting Clacton by-election, which will be held on August 13. And that’s where it started going wrong for him.

Like illiberal populists everywhere, Farage surrounds himself with people who agree with him, so everyone in his inner circle almost certainly told him that the by-election would be a crowning triumph in which he would beat all the mainstream parties again, put all the nasty talk about his finances to bed, and leapfrog further along his preordained path to Number 10. Instead, the main parties boycotted the by-election, leaving Farage to fight it out with Count Binface, the alter-ego of comedian Jon Harvey, who has been standing in elections since 2019. (In the 2017 general election, he stood against Theresa May as Lord Buckethead, but was forced to change his character due to a legal dispute with Buckethead’s original creator.)

There have been joke candidates in British elections for decades; it’s part of a political tradition that stretches back to Shakespeare and probably beyond. The character of the Fool pops up in many of Shakespeare’s plays, serving the function of being the only person able to speak truth to power - albeit couched in humour. Similarly, Binface drops some serious points about the weak spots in British democracy in among his jokes. Here’s his manifesto for Clacton:

Points 4, 5, and 6 are bona fide comments on the way that Farage and others have manipulated their positions in service of their own aims, rather than the interests of the people they represent. Point 7 is an indictment of the failures of successive governments, both Labour and Tory.

The problem for Farage is that the Fool is the role that he feels most comfortable in, and now a challenger is turning it back onto him. Even if he wins (which he probably will), he has been shown up as part of the very system he likes to criticise. But Binface has form in beating fascists, coming way ahead of the Britain First candidate in the 2019 London mayoral elections. There just might be a major upset in Clacton next week that brings a man with a bin on his head into the Houses of Parliament. But even if not, Farage is the loser, because this time the joke is on him.

And finally…

Every so often the BBC will do one of its cringe-inducing ‘Greatest Britons’ polls, or the Bank of England will announce that it is releasing new notes, and the candidates for inclusion will be all the usual suspects - Winston Churchill, Florence Nightingale, et al. No shade on them - they were great - but you can tell that these things are unrepresentative because the shortlists never, ever include Mr C.

Mr C - aka Richard West - is best known as the singer and rapper from 90s group The Shamen, who brought us Ebeneezer Goode, a word play ode to Ecstasy that reached No.1 in the UK charts in 1992. In Drugs Awareness Week. Which meant that, as the UK was solemnly trying to convince itself that it wasn’t inventing rave culture (a far more appealing prospect than its national alcohol problem and tendency to football violence), Mr C was on Top of the Pops shouting ‘Es are good!’

I was eight years old at the time and didn’t get it, but I loved the song and its video for its fun bouncing beat and the zany Dickensian references in the video. A few years later, when I did get it, I loved it even more. Then I read that Mr C had added the line ‘anybody got any underlay?’ to his live version on the BBC as a ‘gratuitous rug reference’. It’s a joke that keeps getting better.

A few years later, Mr C brought us the seminal London nightclub The End, which closed in 2009 having totally reshaped the clubbing scene and the lives of thousands of people. And now, he has made it a hat trick by re-recording Ebezeener Goode as a Count Binface support song, shouting ‘Bins are good!’ repeatedly while wearing a dress.

Here it is - enjoy. And if you’re reading this, Mr C, please never change.