Count Binface’s manifesto and Farage’s tarnished purity

It would take Queen Elizabeth and her unforgettable “oh, dear” to comment on Count Binface’s election manifesto and the crumpling of Nigel Farage’s leadership. As is well known, the British nationalist leader resigned from Parliament, claiming to be the victim of a witch-hunt, and has stood again for the same seat, in Clacton-on-Sea, where the by-election will take place on 13 August. The so-called witch-hunt of which Farage complains concerns millions of pounds in undeclared donations, as well as the support of a convicted aristocrat (from American prisons) in the form of money, houses and people – again, all undeclared. Farage claims he is the target of a relentless campaign by the media and the establishment, and so he has launched an election campaign that suspends parliamentary committees and which, in his calculations, was meant to crown him once again as the champion of the people. Then came the candidate in a space suit with a rubbish bin on his head, and the very concept of the establishment was redefined, just as Farage’s famous smirk was redefined, for it is the outsider (from another planet!) and Count Binface who are the ones making people laugh and stealing the show. He has published his twenty-point manifesto, in which he promises to spend more time in Clacton than in Washington (just as Farage always does at the court of the Trumpians), to cut taxes for constituents in his constituency whilst raising them for everyone else, and to bring the Eurovision Song Contest to Clacton in 2028, with himself representing the United Kingdom.

Now, it remains to be seen how this will play out, but the purity that Farage has always sought to impose as a naive, anti-establishment maverick has taken a knock, and for the first time in months his rise no longer seems inevitable. There is certainly a new sense of excitement surrounding the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, but in light of Farage’s miscalculation, one cannot help but think: oh, dear.