Makerfield ‘Count Binface’ candidate delivers a slam dunk over Farage

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  • Post last modified:21 June 2026

Political candidate Jonathan Harvey — also known as ‘Count Binface’ — stood in the Makerfield by-election for comedy value rather than in hope of winning. But even a comedy candidate has more political honesty than racist Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Notably, the peculiar atmosphere of Makerfield displayed just how easily humour can inform local politics. Quizzed by Sky News about his candidacy and whether he lived in the constituency, Harvey promised he would move there if he won, and reminding viewers that Farage “spends more time in America than in Clacton.” Farage is notionally the MP for Clacton in Essex,…

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Count Binface Makerfield manifesto would stitch up Burnham

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  • Post last modified:9 June 2026

Count Binface is among the candidates for the Makerfield by-election. So voters will have at least one coherent manifesto to ponder. UK politics has a long and rich tradition of electoral candidates who apparently exist in a different universe from everyone else. It’s how we ended up with Boris Johnson and Liz Truss as successive PMs. But aside from the utter deadbeats standing for allegedly serious parties, there’s the novelty candidate. The Official Monster Raving Loony Party pretty much wrote the book on this sort of thing. And its leader, Alan ‘Howlin’ Laud Hope, will be lining up alongside 13 others…

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