Space warrior Count Binfacer is running for mayor of London. But the slapstick also has a serious side.
Ridiculous looks, catchy slogans and a joke in every other sentence: When the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson took the stage to announce his victory in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency at the last general election in Great Britain, he met a strange competitor.
Count Binface (roughly: Count Dustbin Face) is a self-proclaimed intergalactic space warrior who is running in elections again this year: When local elections take place in large parts of England and Wales on May 2nd, he wants to be elected Mayor of London.
Those responsible should bathe in polluted Thames
He has promised to let Thames Water officials take a dip in the faeces-infested Thames to “see how they like it” and has announced he will cap the price of croissants at one pound and ten pence. With these and other promises, he is trying to dethrone Labor Party incumbent Sadiq Khan, who is running for the third time.
Nonsense candidates like Count Binface aka comedian Jon Harvey have a tradition in Great Britain. When Johnson celebrated his victory in 2019, in addition to the space warrior, a candidate in the costume of the Sesame Street character Elmo, a Lord Buckethead and a Yace Yogenstein, also known as the Interplanetary Time Lord, also appeared on stage. The Official Monster Raving Loony Party, founded in 1982, regularly runs in elections.
He doesn’t really care about the votes
If you ask Harvey why he does this, he says: “It makes me laugh and I hope it makes other people laugh.” He was inspired, among other things, by Star Wars parodies and the slapstick series “Blackadder” with Mr. Bean actor Rowan Atkinson.
But in reality he is not interested in getting as many votes as possible, says Harvey in an interview with the German Press Agency in London. “I don’t need a single vote. It’s always wonderful when they come. But that’s not the point. It’s simply about showing that everyone can vote, which is not possible in so many countries around the world,” he said 44 year old. The electoral authorities are always very accommodating, he praises. “You understand what it’s about.”
Electoral system changed without citizen participation
Politics professor Tony Travers from the London School of Economics confirms that Count Binface’s supporters also have a serious side. The Binface voters were very good at using the previous voting system, in which they could indicate two preferences. The first preference was Binface. But because he was quickly out of the race, they chose one of the more promising candidates as their second preference, to whom the vote was then transferred. “They were efficient at sending a signal: ‘We like to have a little fun, but in the end we’re serious,'” says Travers, summing up the Binface community’s motto. Almost 24,800 voters chose the space warrior in the last mayoral election in London in 2021.
However, the electoral system has been changed for the upcoming election and now corresponds to the “first-past-the-post” system that also applies to general elections in Great Britain, in which the candidate with the most votes wins and everyone else simply forfeits. Harvey doesn’t find it acceptable that this change was simply pushed through by the two major parties without consulting the voters. Many Londoners are probably not even aware that they no longer have two preferences. “I think we should just be honest with people,” he sums up.
Unlike the competition, Binface always sticks to the truth
It is important to Harvey to emphasize that unlike some real candidates, Count Binface always sticks to the truth. When a journalist from the Independent newspaper once asked him whether he thought his call to lower the voting age to 16 but at the same time introduce a maximum age of 80 was fair, Binface answered with a resounding “no” – which left the reporter so confused meant that it took him a few moments to find the thread again.
No one is safe from Count Binface’s ridicule, no matter what party or political orientation they belong to. The best thing Harvey can say about incumbent Khan is: “He’s certainly better than his predecessor.” He is alluding to Boris Johnson. When asked what he thinks of Khan’s conservative challenger Susan Hall, he simply asks: “Who?” and starts to chuckle.
