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Count Binface

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Re: Count Binface

#61

Post by Someone »

llimos wrote: post #18

There's a long tradition in the UK of comedy candidates, notably the Monster Raving Loony Party. There's even some talk of a potential Loony-Bin alliance.

> notably the Monster Raving Loony Party.

The _Official_ Monster Raving Loony Party (http://www.loonyparty.com/), you mean?

Wikipedia (of course) has a page on it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_...) and also has a list of frivolous political parties worldwide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_frivolous_political_pa...)

Re: Count Binface

#62

Post by stingraycharles »

taran_narat wrote: post #44

This person is hilarious, for non-UK people who are wondering what this is, this is a joke candidate for an MP who is getting a lot of attention because of the political system in the UK not working very well. This YouTube video has sort of started this off recently and made him go viral https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MCCVt8IhJkA&pp=ygUHQmluZmFjZQ%...

What I find interesting is that he seems to be the only candidate? Aren’t there actual political parties that could have produced legitimate candidates?

Re: Count Binface

#63

Post by calcifer »

DamonHD wrote: post #57
calcifer wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are very few ways of becoming PM without also being an MP. The PM must be able to sit in the parliament, so he must either be an MP or a member of the Lords. In theory, the current PM or even the King could make him a Peer, and therefore a member of the Lords, but neither is likely :)

Do you mean "must be able to sit in Parliament"? The Lords and Commons are the two distinct chambers. There have been non-MP (ie non-Commons) PMs.

Sorry yes, I meant the parliament.

Re: Count Binface

#64

Post by teamonkey »

stavros wrote: post #27
onion2k wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference in this instance is that all of the major parties have stood aside, leaving the Clacton by-election as a race between Nigel Farage and Count Binface. Essentially it's turned into an election between Farage and anyone-but-Farage. I sincerely hope the best alien wins.

I don't understand what this is, can someone explain? Clacton seems to be a town in the UK, are they campaigning for mayor? What's the relevance, why is Farage even involved?

In addition to the other comments it’s worth pointing out that MPs are not allowed to resign. They’re elected by the people.

They can be moved into another public service role, and there are ceremonial roles designed to ‘shelve’ MPs, but other than that, criminal acts and incapacity, they can’t actually stand down. Starmer is resigning as Prime Minister, he is not resigning as an MP.

This is why the other parties see the whole thing as a farce. The chancellor approved the budget for the by-election by saying “if he wants to spend his summer talking to a bin, so be it” but it’s unclear if there’s any constitutional legality to it.

Re: Count Binface

#65

Post by inejge »

stavros wrote: post #36
MarcScott wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very briefly: Farage received a "gift" of £5M. He didn't tell parliament about the gift, which breaks the rules. MPs or campaigning MPs need to declare gifts and donations, as there are strict rules on who you can receive money from. The media found out about the "gift", and Farage was going to be investigated. He resigned as MP for Clacton, which stops the investigation and triggers an election. I think his plan was…

Thank you for the explanation, so this is basically for the election as MP. Does this mean that Farage's party also can't win in the next general election (and make him PM)? AFAIK him becoming PM was a worry.

Any party can win if it gets the majority of candidates across all parliamentary constituencies. However, a Prime Minister must be elected as an MP somewhere. If Reform got a majority without Farage being elected, they would be in a strange situation where the leader of the party couldn't become the PM. It's amusing to think about, in a schadenfreudish way, but the chances of that are slim. He would certainly stand in a general election for the same seat, other major parties would contest it, and it seems that Clacton-on-Sea supports him over the others. This by-election is special because the major parties are boycotting it for being a self-serving stunt that it is.

Re: Count Binface

#66

Post by gostsamo »

stingraycharles wrote: post #62
taran_narat wrote: post #44

This person is hilarious, for non-UK people who are wondering what this is, this is a joke candidate for an MP who is getting a lot of attention because of the political system in the UK not working very well. This YouTube video has sort of started this off recently and made him go viral https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MCCVt8IhJkA&pp=ygUHQmluZmFjZQ%...

What I find interesting is that he seems to be the only candidate? Aren’t there actual political parties that could have produced legitimate candidates?

There were but decided not to stand candidates, likely fearing humiliating defeat.

Re: Count Binface

#67

Post by madaxe_again »

dofm wrote: post #53
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9

"Harvey previously stood as a similar character, Lord Buckethead, but was forced to create a new character due to a dispute with the filmmaker Todd Durham, who owns the Buckethead character" [1]. (The videos on this website are worth the watch. Hilarious, of course. But also...Binface conjugates Latin to Sky News , and not just as a bit. I don't know how I feel about the British comedy candidate outclassing half of t…

> I don't know how I feel about the British comedy candidate outclassing half of the American elected leadership–and a good fraction of its industrial leadership–on IQ.) Your entire political system has flirted with anti-intellectualism for over a century; it used to pretend to be uneducated simpletons to appeal to the electorate (witness, e.g. the folksy “ahhm just a simple mayynn” gurning schtick of Senator John Ke…

Isn’t it the democratic ideal though? Of the people, for the people. If a representative democracy is to truly be representative then the elected representatives should be… representative? Tuberville and Mullin I wouldn’t say were thick so much as they’re pretty average.

Re: Count Binface

#68

Post by dmurray »

calcifer wrote: post #48
stavros wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the explanation, so this is basically for the election as MP. Does this mean that Farage's party also can't win in the next general election (and make him PM)? AFAIK him becoming PM was a worry.

There are very few ways of becoming PM without also being an MP. The PM must be able to sit in the parliament, so he must either be an MP or a member of the Lords. In theory, the current PM or even the King could make him a Peer, and therefore a member of the Lords, but neither is likely :)

Farage can't realistically be PM in the current parliamentary session anyway. His party needs to win, or do very well in, the next general election instead. At a national level this election is purely symbolic and dictates whether Reform will have 7 or 8 seats out of the 650.

I suppose that in theory if Reform could form a government after the next election, but Farage still didn't get a seat, a party colleague could become PM and appoint him as a peer. There's a rich history of politicians losing elections and getting appointed this way instead, though as far as I know none of them subsequently became PM.

Re: Count Binface

#69

Post by robin_reala »

stingraycharles wrote: post #62
taran_narat wrote: post #44

This person is hilarious, for non-UK people who are wondering what this is, this is a joke candidate for an MP who is getting a lot of attention because of the political system in the UK not working very well. This YouTube video has sort of started this off recently and made him go viral https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MCCVt8IhJkA&pp=ygUHQmluZmFjZQ%...

What I find interesting is that he seems to be the only candidate? Aren’t there actual political parties that could have produced legitimate candidates?

The election was triggered because a populist politician being investigated for corruption decided to step down, triggering an election so that he could run again to theoretically prove that he was who the people wanted regardless of the corruption investigation. This backfired when every other party refused to field a candidate (that is, to go along with his plan), apart from Binface. So Farage’s “me vs the establishment” commentary is not going as he expected.

Re: Count Binface

#70

Post by madaxe_again »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #56
Havoc wrote: post #52

I hope he wins the upcoming election. Won’t but one can hope… The actual politician he’s standing against is an asshole

There is at least some concern within their camp that they could lose the election to a guy with a bin on his head. That for me is a win.

There was an interview with him the other day on LBC in which they asked if he wasn’t worried he might have his vote split with the MRLP - Monster Raving Looney Party - but he pointed out quite adroitly that they are just as likely to split reform’s vote, so the more the merrier.
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