Count Binface has released a campaign broadcast filmed on a weather balloon, high enough in the atmosphere for the Earth’s curvature to appear behind it. Not technically space, but a considerably more ambitious backdrop than the usual candidate photo op.
“Hello planet Earth, hello humans,” Binface opens. “Count Binface here, intergalactic space warrior, leader of the Recyclons from Sigma IX and part-time parliamentary candidate.” Then: “To all of you who are able, turn your gaze to an incredible part of your world, the beautiful constituency of Clacton.”
A message for a record-breaking ballot
Clacton votes Thursday, 13 August, with a record 34 candidates standing, according to Tendring District Council, beating the previous parliamentary record of 26, set at Haltemprice and Howden in 2008. Binface acknowledged the ballot paper’s going to look absurd: “I will be standing for election to the British Houses of Parliament alongside 33 other hopefuls. And, for the first time, I have a chance to actually win. It might sound like it’s going to be the world’s worst Comic-Con, but actually, I think it’s amazing.”
Funny line, real point underneath it. He used the broadcast to defend how open British elections actually are, no party permission needed to stand. “British democracy means anyone can vote for whoever they want. And you can stand for election no matter what you believe or what you look like. I’m not naming names.” He even cited a Colombian election apparently won by an anthropomorphic white elephant as precedent: “So it can be done.”
The local pledges made the trip too
The address circled back to policies that have run through this campaign from the start, championing Clacton’s schools, hospitals and businesses, alongside arcade grabber machines and badly positioned pub hand dryers. The hand dryer thing isn’t new, Binface has spent several campaigns demanding one specific dryer in Uxbridge’s Crown and Treaty pub get moved somewhere more sensible.
His full Clacton manifesto mixes that kind of joke with pledges aimed directly at Farage: spending more time in Clacton than Washington DC, barring resigning MPs from immediately contesting the byelection they’ve caused, refusing any £5m gifts from crypto billionaires, restoring the 99 Flake to 99p, capping local bus fares at £1.99, building at least one affordable home. Those same pledges anchored his recent musical broadcast too, which promised to “make Clacton clean” with several direct shots at Farage’s finances and constituency record.
The balloon address closed on the same slogan: “Join me. Let’s take out the trash and make 13 August bin day. Make your votes count.”
Farage remains way out in front
Whatever attention Binface pulls, the polling still gives Farage a massive lead. A Survation poll for Mandate Research put him on 73% against Binface’s 20%. Extraordinary for a satirical candidate, nowhere near enough to actually flip the seat.
Farage triggered this contest by resigning as Clacton’s MP while under investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over his financial interests, then immediately stood again, framing it as the public against the establishment. The main Westminster parties all sat it out, leaving him facing Binface, Laurence Fox, three Official Monster Raving Loony candidates, and a large field of independents and minor parties. The standards inquiry paused when he stopped being an MP and could restart if he’s re-elected, with any further consequences depending on the findings and the Commons disciplinary process.
That’s left Farage spending much of the summer campaigning for a seat he already held, while his most visible opponent tours television studios, releases campaign songs, and sends messages toward the edge of the atmosphere. Binface has picked up genuine international coverage too, interviewed by broadcasters in the US and Australia, and a mystery pilot recently added to the spectacle by tracing a giant bin’s outline in the sky over Clacton.
None of it changes the maths facing Binface on Thursday. Farage remains the clear favourite, and beating him would be one of the biggest shocks in modern British political history. As campaign imagery goes, though, a message floating above the clouds is genuinely hard to top. Clacton’s one constituency on the Essex coast, but for a few minutes it was the centre of Count Binface’s entire universe.
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