Tag Archives: Lord Buckethead

British politics at their best: Count Binface v Nigel Farage

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You have to love British politics. Nigel Farage, Personality-in-Chief of the right-wing populist party Reform UK and until lately a member of parliament–MP for short–is running against a trash can in a special election that he himself engineered. 

I need to explain that, don’t I?

If you’re British, this may seem almost normal, but–

Okay, I’m trying to be diplomatic here. The rest of the world plays by a different set of rules and wonders if you haven’t been trying out those little mushrooms that grow wild on the moor. So bear with me while I’ll explain where we are and how we got here, although I can’t promise it’ll help.

Reform UK has been riding high and is–or at least was–generally considered the main challenger to Labour, which– Oh, hell, we won’t get into that. Labour’s in power right now. 

But Reform’s had a few problems lately. They include a £5 million donation (or gift) that wasn’t declared, along with some donations and loans that banks thought were suspicious and reported to the National Crime Agency. As the newspaper articles mumble superstitiously while wobbling through a minefield that threatens to explode into lawsuits, that doesn’t mean the donations were illegal, only that they raised bankerly eyebrows. 

But the picture isn’t complete until you toss in property purchases, multiple residences, threats to sue, lost tempers, and accusations of leaks and harassment. The cast of characters includes other members of Reform, a crypto billionaire who lives in Thailand, a convicted fraudster, relatives of a convicted fraudster, and probably a few I’ve lost track of. 

Larry the Cat, Chief (if not highly effective) Mouser to 10 Downing Street, has kept his paws pristine, as you’d expect.

That unreported donation (or gift, or what the hell, sum of money) set off a parliamentary investigation, and a few of the eyebrow-twitching donations will find their way into the investigation if they haven’t already. As will the question of whether the donations really came from the people whose names are on them, because it’s illegal to hide the source of a political donation.  

If the committee investigating all this suspends Farage–let’s keep this simple, which takes no small effort in such a convoluted system–he could be kicked out of the Commons, triggering a special election (called a by-election). Then he could run in the by-election and end up right back where he started, although there’s no guarantee that he’d win. 

And here we’re coming to the point: Farage decided to short-circuit the process by announcing his resignation, triggering a by-election where he’d run for the seat he just gave up willingly. He cast it as Farage v the Establishment.

Why did he do that? The best guess is to pull attention away from the investigation, but basically, who knows? It’s not what you’d call a predictable move. If he wins his seat back, the investigation will inevitably start up again.

 

Enter Count Binface

Count Binface, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

So here we are, with a politician giving up his seat in parliament so he can run for the seat he just gave up. On any normal day, a by-election involving a key figure in the nation’s politics would set the main parties scrambling to run candidates, but they’ve done something as unpredictable as Farage has: announced that the by-election’s a farce and they won’t participate. 

The parties sitting out the dance are Labour, the Conservatives, the Greens, the Liberal Democrats, and a further-right populist party that broke away from Reform, Re-something Britain. I never do remember its name. Restore? Restock? Rebuke? Reassert? Remote? Resume? Reassemble? Not Rejoice. Definitely not Rejoice. They lean heavily toward anger.

Never mind. They’re not running a candidate either.

Who does that leave? Count Binface, and this is why I love British politics. Even when I despair of where we’re headed, up steps a Count Binface, and I won’t claim that solves everything but it does give me the strength to face the morning newspaper.

A few minor candidates are running, but they’re also-rans. The contest is Binface v Farage. Or, I suppose, Farage v Binface. 

 

Who is Count Binface?

He describes himself as an “intergalactic space warrior, . . . leader of the Recyclons from planet Sigma IX,” and he appears in full superhero costume with a bin–or if you’re American, a garbage can–on his head. And thanks to election laws that don’t require candidates to live in the district where they’re running, he’s run against anybody who’s anybody: Andy Burnham, Boris Johnson, Theresa May.

In one campaign, he said, “The presence of novelty candidates in general elections is as you know a fine British tradition, and as such I applaud Boris Johnson’s decision to stand.”

In British elections, when the  votes have been counted and the winner is announced, the candidates line up on stage to hear the totals read out, which can leave a prime minister standing next to a man with a garbage can on his head, or someone dressed as a fox or a rabbit. And they’re all on equal footing and they have to shake hands and pretend this is normal. 

You really want to check out the photos. 

Full disclosure here: Binface ran against Theresa May as Lord Buckethead but ran into trouble over who had rights to the name, something he describes as “an unfortunate battle on the planet Copyright”. He’s been running as Count Binface ever since.

“In 2021, I received 92,896 votes (including 24,775 first choice votes) from the humans of London,” he writes, “who made me their 9th choice to be Mayor of the Earth capital, out of 20 candidates. This is a new record for an alien standing for public office on planet Earth.” 

His manifesto? When I checked, except for recycling Farage he didn’t have a manifesto specifically for Clacton yet, so we’ll settle for the one he used in Makerfield, where he ran against Andy Burnham, who (having won a seat in parliament) looks set to be our next prime minister. It’s longish and full of in-jokes, so we’ll abbreviate: “I will cut your taxes and raise everybody else’s. . . . I stand by my past manifestoes: croissants [he’ll cap the price at £1], Brexit, Trident, building at least one affordable house. I’ve got it all covered.”

He also promises to nationalize the singer Adele. 

The press and the internet love him, and according to a poll that I put no faith in whatsoever, he’s favored 5/1 to win against Farage. That may or may not be the right link for the poll and it’s more likely to be betting odds than a poll, but honestly, does it matter?

A Labour donor, Dale Vince, a green energy industrialist, offered to contribute up to £180,050 to Binface’s campaign. 

It’s true that assorted other candidates are standing, including one from the Monster Raving Loony Party and a reality TV star who appeared on Dancing Naked. I’m going to assume–no, I’m going to hope; it’s summer here and light-skinned Brits don’t understand sun and are liable to burn–that he’ll be campaigning clothed, but if I’m wrong, the vote count photos will be memorable.

But even with that prospect, no one cares. It’s Farage v Binface. Place your bets, folks. 

 

Hang on. Is this Binface business legal?

Yup. I took a quick and irresponsible look through the election rules and couldn’t find anything to keep a person from running under a pseudonym. According to the electoral commission, “Where a candidate commonly uses a different name from their actual name, or commonly uses their names in a different way to those stated on the nomination paper, they can ask for this to be used instead of their actual name.”

They give an example along the lines of an Andrew running as Andy, but Binface has road-tested his approach enough times to know it works. And candidates have done it before him, including Screaming Lord Sutch and Howling Laud Hope back in the 20th century.

Remember the 20th century? We thought we had problems then, didn’t we?

 

Why does stuff like this happen in Britain?

The political system isn’t just a gift to satirists and professional comics, it positively breeds them. Absurdity begins to look like self-defense, or a debt they owe the universe. 

For example, MPs can’t resign. They were elected to serve the full term, which runs for up to 5 years, and they can just sit there and behave themselves until it’s over. They don’t actually have to show up at debates and their food and alcohol are subsidized, so what do they have to complain about?  

The rule dates back to the 14th century, which is when MPs were first elected to the House of Commons and discovered that serving in parliament could be a financial or practical burden. You know how things were back then. The trains weren’t reliable, internet connections were worse, the postal service hadn’t even been invented. Some MPs got lonely. What could a government do but trap them in their jobs? 

Then the 1701 Act of Settlement Act and 1707 Act of Union gave them an accidental escape route. MPs would be disqualified if they were appointed to “an Office or Place of Profit” to the crown. The goal was to limit royal influence in Parliament but it didn’t take long for unhappy MPs to find offices or places of profit to the crown that had fallen out of use, paid either nothing or next to it, and weren’t attached to any responsibilities. They asked to be appointed to one and hey presto, they were disqualified from sitting in the Commons and free to go home.

Those offices quickly narrowed down to two: the Chiltern Hundreds and the Manor of Northstead. 

From the 1770s on, the chancellor has had to grant the offices to anyone who asks for them, which automatically boots out the previous office holder. In a single day in 1985, 15 office holders barged through that revolving door.

There’ve been–imagine!–complaints that the system’s antiquated and irrational and that it opens the door to corruption (an MP could step down, say, to hand a seat to a family member or to someone who’s paid for the privilege). There’s been a worry or two that the government might refuse to grant the office to someone, trapping an MP in the Commons till their term was up. 

They’re  not bad arguments–especially that one about antiquated and irrational–but changing a parliamentary tradition just because it’s pointless and absurd? This isn’t the right audience for that argument. I mean, parliament does a yearly check to make sure a nonexistent basement doesn’t hold any explosives because back when there was a basement some were hidden there. Don’t talk to them about absurdity.

The last serious effort to reform the way MPs resign was in 1901. It failed.

 

What happens next?

We sit back and enjoy the show until sometime in August, when the election will be held. If Farage wins, he will have heroically defended a seat he didn’t have to give up against someone with a trash can on his head and the investigation into his and everyone else’s finances will start up again. 

And if Binface wins? That should be interesting. The House of Commons’ dress code says, “Members should dress in business-like attire; this need not include a tie. A Member has been allowed to continue speaking on condition that clothing with inappropriate visual content [they mean slogans] is covered. Members are not permitted to wear decorations in the House. The wearing of military insignia or uniform inside the Chamber is not in accordance with the long-established custom of the House.”  

So if Binface insists on being sworn in in character? I’m no lawyer, but I’m happy to impersonate one, and if I was putting the count’s argument together it would center on the definition of businesslike:

Mr. Speaker, this is what the honorable gentleman wears for business. 

They really do talk that way, although I have no idea who’d hear the argument and whether Mr. Speaker would be involved.

Then I’d argue that traditions change. I’d make a quick reference to Oliver Cromwell, who broke tradition by wearing a “plain cloth” suit made of linen by “an ill country tailor” and a hat without a hat band. 

I’m not sure who I’m quoting there but I’ve seen it quoted in a few places, which lends it the illusion of authenticity, so it’ll do. And if you move through an argument fast enough, most people won’t notice any logical gap.

The counter-argument will surely be that armor hasn’t been allowed in the Parliament since October 30, 1313, but it doesn’t matter. A trash can isn’t armor. 

And on it will go. Parliament holds its traditions dear. Swords, for example, aren’t allowed in the chamber but even now, when very few people wear them to work, MPs are supplied with a lovely purple ribbon in the cloakrooms so they can hang theirs up. 

The Serjeant at Arms does carry a sword, but someone has to. 

Count Binface does not carry a sword and will, I’m sure, be happy to leave that honor to the Serjeant at Arms. Mister Speaker, can we not allow the honorable gentleman to take his seat in the attire appropriate to his business?

At which point the poor guy–and there is a real person in there, named Jonathan David Harvey–will be stuck sitting on an uncomfortable bench in what must be an uncomfortable getup, especially if the weather stays hot.

I mentioned the person inside the suit. Hoping (no doubt) to shock voters away from supporting Binface, Farage supporters have outed Binface as an “establishment comic.” But most people have already guessed that there’s a human inside the suit. I can’t wait to hear their next line of attack.

As for Binface’s, an interviewer asked him, “Why should anybody vote for you?”

“I’m not Farage,” he said.

 

A final word

The Guardian ran an admirable article about Binface, including a few quotes from fellow candidates in other elections and some great photos. One shows our presumptive prime minister-in-waiting standing between Binface and someone in a fox costume. Another shows Boris Johnson standing between Lord Buckethead and (I think) a Teletubby. 

By way of (alleged) insight into Count Binface’s real character, a Monster Raving Loony Party candidate, Nick the Flying Brick, who’s run against Binface in (I think) two elections, said Binface “goes a bit funny if you use his real name.” After he gave up his Buckethead identity and ran against Boris Johnson as Count Binface, someone else stood against Boris Johnson as Lord Buckethead. Binface “drowned out Buckethead’s interviews by singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ and Buckethead flipped the finger at Binface as the results were announced.”

What’s the point of it all, though? As Nick the Flying Brick explained, “There is that endless joke: there is one absurd, parody, completely inappropriate candidate [in the Clacton by-election]–and he is standing against Count Binface.”

News from the fringes of Britain’s election: a midweek bonus post

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Elections are serious business, and this one is especially serious, so let’s take you on a tour of its crazier fringes. 

The most important fringe is unraveling in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, a London suburb where Boris Johnson, also known as Britain’s prime minister, is trying to keep his seat in parliament. At the last election, his majority was small–in the neighborhood of 5,000 votes. If he loses his seat but his party wins a majority in the Commons, it will have to find itself a new leader, he’ll have to find himself a new hobby, and the new leader will be the new prime minister. 

Johnson’s most serious challenge is from Labour, so we’ll skip that. We’ll also skip the Liberal Democrat, the Green Party candidate, and anyone else we’d have to take seriously.

The most interesting challenges come from Count Binface and Lord Buckethead. We’re looking at a particularly bitter fight there, because Count Binface used to be Lord Buckethead but had an unpleasant set-to on, as he put it, planet Copyright and had to reincarnate as Count Binface.  

Are you keeping up with this?

Neither am I. Lord Buckethead was–or, I guess, still is–a character in a 1984 movie, Hyperspace, that no one ever saw.  Or so says one newspaper. Another says he was a character in a 1980s Gremloids, another movie that no one ever saw.

Do we care which movie it was? No. Here at Notes, we’re completely nondenominational about bad movies. All we care about is that a comedian, Jon Harvey, appropriated the character.

Buckethead likes to run against prime ministers. He’s run against Theresa May, David Cameron, John Major, and Margaret Thatcher. I believe someone else was being Buckethead part that time, but do we really care about that? Probably not. 

This business of popping around the country to run against prime ministers is made possible by an election law that doesn’t demand that candidates live in the areas they hope to represent.   

The law also doesn’t make candidates use their real names in elections, and that’s a gift to those of us whose spirits need lifting in these dismal times. It doesn’t even make them define real. All they have to do is file papers and pay money. 

So the man who used to be Lord Buckethead is now running as Count Binface, but someone else is running–also in Uxbridge and et cetera–as Lord Buckethead. Count B. has said he looks forward to a “receptacle to receptacle debate” with him.

As Count B. (writing on Twitter as @CountBinface) explained, “At a time when political precedent is being broken all over the place, I find myself effectively standing against not just (current) Prime Minister @BorisJohnson but also myself. I think that’s a first.”

In a separate tweet, he explained that he’d renounced his peerage because in an earlier campaign he’d promised to abolish the House of Lords. 

The current Lord Buckethead is running on the Monster Raving Loony Party ticket.

Guys, I don’t make this stuff up. I only wish I had the sort of mind that could.

Another candidate running against Boris Johnson in Uxbridge and Wherever is William Tobin, who announced that he doesn’t want anyone’s vote, he’s only running because as a long-term British resident in the European Union he’s no longer eligible to vote, although he is eligible to run for office. He wants to raise the profile of 7 million disenfranchised voters who will be affected by Brexit but get no say in British politics. 

I haven’t confirmed that number. Can we agree that there are a lot of them, though?

Enough for Uxbridge and So Forth. In other constituencies, the most interesting fringes I’ve found belong to the Monster Raving Loony Party, whose candidates include: the Incredible Flying Brick, Earl Elvis of Outwell, Howling Laud Hope, Citizen Skwith, and the Baron and the Dame, who must have found a way to run jointly, because they’re quite clearly two people. I struggle to recognize people, but even I can manage to tell them apart: One’s shorter and the other has a long, scraggly beard. They’re both male. One of them being called the Dame is a British thing and has to do with pantos, which are–oh, never mind. It’s too complicated to explain in a short space but but it’s not about trannies or queens. It’s a recognized theatrical form, and a strange one. 

The Monster Raving Loony manifesto includes a proposal to “reduce the national debt by selling the castles back to the French. (Buyer dismantles.)” 

Wish us luck, world. We need it right now.

Lord Buckethead and British Politics

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Lord Buckethead has been in the news lately.

Who, you might rationally ask, is Lord Buckethead? Let’s do a quick news quiz. He is:

  1. A candidate in U.K. elections.
  2. A character in a science fiction movie.
  3. Both of the above.

Answer # 3 is correct.

The only marginally useful thing I can tell you about the movie that created the Lord B. character is that it’s called Gremloids and that Lord B. is an intergalactic space lord. I’ve seen him described as a cut-price Darth Vader. I trust someone will jump in and save me from my ignorance. In the meantime, let me tell you about the candidate.

Lord Buckethead flashed onto the political scene in 2017, when he ran against Prime Minister Theresa May. In the British system, no one runs or votes directly the prime ministership, so he was running against her for a seat in Parliament. May claimed to be offering strong, stable leadership. He offered “strong, not entirely stable, leadership.”

Irrelevant photo: A rhododendron. The season’s over. Really, I need to get out there and take some new pictures.

He made his appearances in costume. (I could probably argue that she did as well.) You owe it to yourself to go back to the first mention of his name and follow the link so you can see him standing demurely alongside the other candidates, waiting for the vote totals to be announced.

I’ll make this easy: Here’s the link again.

He won 249 votes and the photo of him and his fellow candidates went viral.

At some point, the person under the Lord B. costume, Jon Harvey, got into a wrangle over control of the Lord B. character with Todd Durham, the filmmaker behind Gremloids. It ended up with Harvey surrendering the key to Lord B.’s Twitter account to  Durham.

Then Lord B. went quiet for a while.

Recently, though, he started tweeting again, and appearing at rallies backing a second Brexit referendum. He did some fundraising so he could run in the E.U. elections but dropped his bid when he realized he might take votes from anti-Brexit candidates he actually supported.

This is a new Lord Buckethead, though, not the old one. Since we’re talking about someone with a black buckety thing on his head, the difference isn’t easy to spot. The new Lord B. seems be linked to Durham, because it was Durham who said the money Lord B. crowdfunded for his E.U. election campaign had been returned when he abandoned his run.

Or maybe it is Durham, except that, according to the bios I’ve found, he’s American. Even in costume and under the name Lord Buckethead, he’s not–at least at first glance–eligible to run in European elections. And I’m going to assume that anyone registering to run as Lord Buckethead will be asked a few questions beyond the standard have you filled out this form and where’s your money?

Durham said he welcomed applications from people who want to stand as Lord B. in future British elections. He didn’t say how many, so in our next elections, whenever they turn out to happen, we may find multiple Lord B.’s running for multiple seats. Maybe we’ll end up with a parliament made up entirely of people in Buckethead costumes who all hold their seats under the same name. 

And you thought we had chaos now.

Anyway, it could have been an E.U. citizen inside the costume in this most recent almost-run. It also might not have been. We can’t tell. 

What do British electoral regulations say about people running under names that aren’t their own?

“If you commonly use a different name from your actual name, you can ask for your commonly used name(s) to be used instead of your actual name. “

The name does–at least in theory–have to be a commonly used name that you commonly use.  And it can’t be obscene or offensive. So if you commonly call yourself Lord Buckethead, you’re okay. If you don’t, you’re on shaky ground, although you can fix it all by convincing your mother to call you Lord Buckethead for a week or two.

Can I listen into that conversation? Please?

As far as I know, you don’t have to wear the costume all day or sew yourself Lord Buckethead pajamas.

No one has thought to make a rule governing multiple people running under the same commonly used name that just happens to belong to a fictional being.

Yet.

The earliest Lord Buckethead campaigns were personed by Mike Lee, who ran him (or maybe that should be plain old “who ran”; grammar doesn’t know what to do with this) against Margaret Thatcher in 1987 (131 votes) and against John Major in 1992 (107 votes).

Lord B.’s manifesto (that seems to be the second Lord B., not, I think, the first or the third, although really, your guess is as good as mine) includes the following position on nuclear weapons: “A firm public commitment to build the £100bn renewal of the Trident weapons system, followed by an equally firm private commitment not to build it. They’re secret submarines, no one will ever know. It’s a win win.”

The current Lord B. tweets as @LordBuckethead.

And Jon Harvey–the second Lord B.? He’s pointing out that crowdfunding can allow candidates to be funded and controlled from abroad. The most recent Lord B. campaign, he said, was being run by an American from Beverly Hills.

When the second (I think) Lord B. was interviewed on CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, the interviewer asked,  “Are you like Dr. Who, do you regenerate for each election?”

“I am Buckethead,” he said. ” We are Buckethead. We are Legion. Does that answer your question?”

Which is an impressively accurate prediction, since he made it before he had any idea how legion he was about to become.

Welcome to the insanity of British politics. Sadly, most of it this much fun. Or this sensible.

*

I owe thanks to someone for suggesting that I write about Lord Buckethead, but I’ve lost track of who it is. When I looked him up at the time, I couldn’t make the story come together. It took the latest uproar for it to cohere into what you just read. By now, though, I’ve lost the note I left myself. Whoever you are, thanks and please let me know who you are. I’ll post a link if you blog.

What really matters in British politics

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You have to love British politics. We just had an election in which the prime minister, Theresa May—at least as I type this she’s still the prime minister, although I wouldn’t put any large amount of money on that lasting—was opposed in her bid to continue as a member of parliament by Lord Buckethead, Elmo, and Howling “Laud” Hope.

But before we go into detail, a bit of background for anyone who isn’t used to British elections: In spite of being the prime minister, May had to run for her seat in parliament, just like any other member of parliament. All prime ministers do. If she couldn’t keep her seat, she wouldn’t be prime minister anymore.

It must be humbling to go from wheeling a dealing and giving orders to begging for votes on equal terms with the rest of your party.

Especially when people don’t take it seriously.

Irrelevant and not particularly good photo: Buttercups. Sorry–I’ll try to do better next time.

Let’s start with the most dramatic of her opponents, Lord Buckethead, who wears a black cape and has a black bucket–or something black and vaguely bucketish–on his head. As far as I can figure out, he ran without the backing of any party. Political parties can be short sighted like that. Think of the publicity they could’ve gotten.

He describes himself as an “intergalactic space lord.” The article I learned this from says his real name is unknown, although for all we know he asked Google to translate his name from intergalactic space lordish into English and it comes out as Lord Buckethead.

Note to all reporters: Check your assumptions before you pass them off as facts. This stuff matters.

Anyway, Theresa May’s campaign, both in her own constituency and around the country on behalf of her party, consisted of droning the slogan “strong, stable leadership” at every possible opportunity. Buckethead promised strong but “not entirely stable leadership.”

That won him 249 votes.

He (or someone else with the same name and a bucket on his head) also ran against Margaret Thatcher in 1987 and John Major in 1992, when they were the prime ministers. In Britain, you don’t have to live in the constituency you’re running for office in—or even pretend to live in it—so running against a prime minister? It’s something you can do on a whim, as long as you have the filing fee, which is £500, and meet a list of fairly boring qualifications, such as not being a member of the police or armed forces, a civil servant, or a judge.

Buckethead apparently qualifies, and he even has policies. One is providing safe, effective opposition to Theresa May. Another is turning a safe seat (that means a parliamentary seat that a party’s almost guaranteed to win) into an ejector seat. A third is investing in schools, the National Health Service, social care, local infrastructure, and “other things humans vote for.”

He also promised to nationalize the singer Adele and abolish all lords except himself. And just to prove he’s serious about this, he has a campaign song.

Okay, I’ve heard better singers. Hell, I’m a better singer, because he doesn’t set the bar very high. But then the better singers I’m talking about weren’t singing from inside a bucket, so we should probably cut the guy a little slack.

Elmo also ran against Theresa May, but he only got 3 votes, probably because he appeared under the name Bobby Smith instead of Elmo. I mean, Bobby Smith? Who’s going to vote for him? On the other hand, he got to appear on the platform, dressed as Elmo, alongside May and Lord Buckethead when the votes were counted.

Lord Buckethead stole the show, though.

Still sticking with May’s constituency, the Monster Raving Loony Party (“vote for the Monster Raving Loony Party—The only sane thing to do in a world gone mad”) backed Howling “Laud” Hope, who won 119 votes and got to take the quotation marks home with him, since they appeared on the ballot. I don’t know if he had to change his name legally to appear on the ballot that way. It’s something Elmo should ask him about.

“Laud” Hope was also on stage, although looking at the BBC’s photo—which is wonderful—I’m not sure which one he is since he wasn’t in costume. The party could learn a thing or three from the independents.

But enough of Theresa May’s constituency. Let’s move on. Tim Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, had to run against Mr. Fish Finger (sometimes spelled Fishfinger), who according to the Guardian (see the first link) upstaged Farron’s victory speech.

Fish Finger took the name legally after a Twitter poll of 1,000 people showed that 90% of them would rather be led by a fish finger than by Farron.

What’s a Twitter poll? I don’t really know, but I suspect it’s one of those things where you ask 1,000 of your closest friends to agree with you.

Mr Finger (or maybe that’s Mr. Fishfinger) crowdfunded his campaign, raising £2,301. His page says he trusts “to Cod that you will keep giving.”

I was having a good time with all this until I read his twitter page, which (to the extent that I can figure out what he’s saying) is full of anti-immigrant crap and bad puns. Okay, full disclosure: the puns were on the crowdfunding page and I was willing to overlook them until I decided I hated the guy.

Strong opinions on the subject? Nah. I treasure my objectivity.

Still, he upstaged Tim Farron beautifully during the vote count. And got 309 votes. Plus he’s now the proud owner of a ratty-looking fish finger costume, and Halloween is coming.

And that, my friends, is what really goes on in British politics.