The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 200. Count Binface: Nigel Farage's Biggest Threat?

Episode Date: August 2, 2026

Is Count Binface really Nigel Farage's biggest threat in Clacton, and has Farage already lost by turning "me against the establishment" into a battle against a bin? Does Binface's manifesto hide serious politics beneath the comedy? Could a joke candidate ever become a serious political force? Alastair and Rory are joined by Count Binface as they answer all these questions and more. __________ Search IG.com to find out more and/or Look for IG in your app store. __________ Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [e-mail] __________ Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Josh Smith, Caroline Kaye, James Clayden, Oli Ortega, Lorcan Moullier Assistant Producer: Daisy Alston-Horne Senior Producer: Nicole Maslen Exec Producer: Chris Sawyer General Manager: Tom Whiter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members' chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's the restispolitics.com. Britain has a long distinguished history of eccentric novelty election candidates with Lord David's Such of the Monster Raving Looney Party, the most consequential until now. Because today's guest has taken the phenomenon to a new global fame stratosphere. When Nigel Farage, resigned as Member of Parliament for Clacton, he grandly announced it would be a battle between me and the establishment. Instead, it's become him against a bin. For Count Binface is the best known of more than 30 weird and wonderful candidates who have joined the Farage Claxton Circus.

August 13th is going to be quite a day. We should say we've invited Nigel Farage many times to come on the podcast and he would still be very welcome. But for now, in between his media bits from all around the world, it's a big, rest is politics welcome to account binface. This episode is presented by IG. It's August. Parliament's in recess. Fund managers are on the beach or doing whatever fund managers do. But those of us who follow the news closely know the world doesn't stop shifting just because it's summer. As Alistar often reminds me when I emerge from our summer retreat, geopolitics, central bank decisions, the markets and goodness knows what else is going on all the time. And while August may definitely catch investors off

guard. Having their portfolios spread across multiple apps and accounts makes it even harder to stay on top of things. And that's where IG comes in. IG brings all your investing, trading and funding together in one connected app. So you can move money, manage positions and acts on opportunities without even switching platforms. Plus, IG charges no annual fees and zero commission on stocks, shares and ETFs. In essence, it's a more efficient platform that also costs you less. Download the IG app and get started. IG, trade, invest, progress. Capital at risk, other fees may apply. Hear that? It's your money calling. It wants a promotion.

Elevate your savings with the Scotia high interest savings account. Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest. Conditions apply. Visit Scotia Bank.com slash H-I-S-A to learn more. Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think. Welcome, Camp In Face. Oh, well, hello, Alistair, and Salway Rory. Salway to you, too. Have you seen the Odyssey film?

I have. What did you think of it? Before we get into that, where's Micah Richards? Oh, no, no, that's the other one. Oh, no. Football. Do I like Michael Richards? I do.

He loves this podcast. Well, I, oh, it's the rest is, but, sorry, I, I, got confused. But never mind. Go ahead. Just tell us a little bit about the Odyssey before we get on to your Odyssey against Nigel Farage. Oh, clever. That's a pre-segue. I love that. Well, yes, of course. The Odyssey, I got to see a preview screening of that. I had to sit in the back row, obviously.

Otherwise, you wouldn't want to sit behind you. Exactly. But, you know, I've dabbled in the classics. Not to your extent, Rory, but I do my reading. And, well, I thought it was a good film. I thought that that translator, Emily Wilson, bit sniffy, I really enjoyed it.

But I also would say, as I'm sure you would, that it is, of course, in several places, a misreading of the homelic original. Alaster will know, as I really add, as a Rory will,

men in Aedetea, Pellea di Olaeus, ulomenen, emuliakaios, Algetteke, polas diptimus, to cast, I eat it for your absent hello on. I mean, I could go on. Rory, tell him what that meant. Have you, have you, have you used any of expecting that way? No, I wasn't. That was really

impressive. But this, unfortunately, there's slightly sort of give me sort of slight vibes of Boris Johnson. There was a slight moment. Well, you know, I took him on, didn't I? You did. You did. Bill, listen, Cam, this is where we've got you get back, get you down to earth because you're now involved in a very, very important political event. And I don't think you should go around the streets of Clacton. spouting Latin up. So why did you decide? That was Greek. Why did you decide? Was that Greek? Homeric Greek. You soundly's Welsh, but anyway, why did you decide? Why did you decide to come in here and start in such a highbrow note? Or did you not think about what your objective

for this podcast was? I mean, calling yourself highbrow, I think some of your listeners. Your highbrow, not me. Oh, I see. Yeah, well quite, there we are. We know, I can't stop being highbrow. It is true, his brows are quite literally. They are. They're off the scale. It's a good question in so much as you might say as a political strategist, you know, what percentage of the Clacton electorate are, A, listening to the rest is politics and B, going to have their minds changed by it?

And I would argue the percentage is quite small. That's not meant in an offensive tone to you. I just mean that, you know, I agree with you that there are other ways to potentially get myself out there. But then, you know, you look at what the news the media have done. They've made this into Farage versus Binface when actually there are 34 candidates standing for this election. Are you going to meet all 34? No. There you go. You see, I've done my hard work. We probably should, didn't we? We don't. We don't meet. We'll have Farage. We don't want Lawrence Fox. You might get stuffed if you don't. Apart from Frasge, is there any other

candidate that might be a bit of a threat to you? No. No. Lawrence Fox? No. Who Lawrence Fox Is that the one who stood in the fox suit in Makerfield? No. It's an actual fox? That was somebody

He's one of the Fox family But there's another one Whenever there's a bin A fox is sure to follow In one way or another Now listen You're doing this campaign though And I'll put my cards on the table

I would really like you to win Okay Thank you But there's two things you haven't done Which you should have done I think there's more than two Why didn't you persuade Any of these other candidates

To drop out Did you try? Well I didn't know who they were I still don't know who they are. You can still find them and say, please don't stand because you might take five votes from me. Dear, dear Alistair, Rory will know this. By the way, before I say this,

why have you come dressed A as the same and B as Andy Burnham? Is it some kind of memo I didn't get? You both dressed as Andy. It's confusing. No, he wears a vest. He wears a T-shirt. No, he likes a little open top shirt, doesn't they? You all do. Anyway, we'll get back to it.

Once you say you're standing, isn't this right, You can't withdraw. No, but you can, you can persuade them to tell their supporters to vote for you. But they don't have any supporters. Well, so you write them off. No. What is your, here's one story, what is your strategy for this election? Yeah, let's stick on that for the first.

It's a good one. Okay, well, good question. This is the question, the Today program, oh, I know you are big fans of. Asked me this, exactly. It wasn't the 610 interview. Don't worry, Alistair. It was at 845. And they asked me, and I simply said, well, I'm not Nigel Farage.

Yeah. And that's it. Well, what more do I need? You need policy. You need ideas. Of course, I've got policies. And in fact, okay, now let's get onto the real stuff. Yeah.

I've got a manifesto, which I put out yesterday. Have you read it? I have. Right? We both have. We both read it. So why did you put out a fake one the week before? Alistair Campbell, any listeners here, I have been subject.

to fake news by the spin doctor extraordinaire. I put it out as a suggestion. Yes. And I see that one of them you've taken on board. The point is that after you did that, that went viral around the world. Everyone's saying those were my policies. Cheeky man. I didn't say that were your policies.

This is what I would do if I were in your campaign. Yes. And then you posted a, I believe, a JPEG or PNG of my pledge card with a fake signal. saying count bin face. I could bloody sue you, mate. You wouldn't do that, would you? No. Have you got all the main ones off in your head?

Or should I read them? Well, I wrote them, but I'd like to hear them in your dulcid tones, Roder. It's good. Because just before we get on with that, we do have a bit of relationship, don't we? We did quite a lot together. Back in the day. What did we do? Yeah, we're running for leadership, running for London mayor.

We spent quite a lot of time together. Yes, well, you were going to run for London Mayor, weren't you? Did you make it all the way through to the very end? Unlike some people. Unlike some people. That's how I believe. I don't believe politics should be done. So, yes, I did actually.

You did, despite if it was delayed by you. Okay. I will, let's just go through them. I'll boost the region's economy, prestige and fame. Yes. I will cut your taxes and raise everyone else's. Now, that's good. Let's just stop on that one for a second.

Yeah, that's a good one, isn't it? How? It's quite simple. Yeah. How much are you taxed? Me? Yes. Top rate.

Right? Mm-hmm. So imagine a bit less than top rate. Yeah. Rory? Yeah. And what are you taxed? Top Red.

Imagine a bit more than that. Uh-huh. Are you with me? It's not that hard, is it? It is because you say to both of us, you're going to cut our taxes. You say to all the people of Clacton, you're going to cut all of their taxes. So where is the money coming to pay for the tax cut? From everyone else.

That's in the rest of, A, from everyone else, Rory's with me. But also from the money raising points in my manifesto, which we'll get to. We're getting there now. bus fares to be capped at 1.19.19. 99 flake ice creams to cost no more than 99 p. Yes. How much does that cost the exchequer? Well, if the exchequer wants a 99 flake, it'll cost them 99 pence. How much does it cost the exchequer to cap the bus fares at a penny lower than Andy Berlin, the Prime Minister, wants to do it?

One pence. Per fare, overall. So it's costing him about 400 million, isn't it? Oh, you're helping. Your dad is his numbers for it. So what is... 0.5% of that. Yeah.

It's not much, is it? It's less than you guys earn in a year. Number four is the one you stole from my pledge card. I promised to spend more time in Clacton on C than in Washington, D.C. I didn't steal that from your pledge card.

That's just obvious. No, you stole it. I reckon you guys would spend... You actually sent me an email saying thanks for that one. Well, look, the fact is, you guys would spend more time in Clacton on C than Washington, D.C. And you're not even running to be MP.

That's true. So it's not hard. We then have MPs who resign mid-Polment to be barred from the resulting by election. Who could that be? Who could that be? Right, it's a uniform measure. I don't know what you mean.

MPs who change party mid-parlimate be forced to face the by-election. Do you like that one? Yeah. So who that count? That would be Genric. Who else? A few Labour people last time. Yes.

Sean Woodward in your area. Exactly. So if they cross the floor, they've stood in front of the great British public with one rosette. And then they change. Yeah. Well, as long as they change towards my side, I'm fine. And then... There we are.

I will not accept five million pound gifts from crypto billionaires. You skip forward a few, but fair enough. Before we get on to the other eye-catching, more populist initiatives, like the hand-dry and the quassons and stuff. Not populist. That's a health and safety measure. What's with the hand-dry location? Where is it located?

What's annoying about it? The Southport. The Southport one. It's on my website. There's an Uxbridge one and this is Southport one. There's another one in Dulwich, if you want to know. This is a nation. wide issue. And this is the point, you see.

So where are they roughly located that annoys you so much? It's not as annoying me. Yeah. I'm thinking of human safety. Yeah. I don't want to paint a picture too vivid. Who knows when people are listening? They're very close to the irinoles, Rory.

Aha. And do you want your private bits being air-fried to smithereens by someone washing their hands? Maybe you do. But if you don't, if you call that poppy, then I think we're all in deep trouble. Pot holes to be filled using copies of the 2024 Labor Party Manifesto.

Do you like that one? Well, will they actually work for filling the pot holes? Have you tested that? No, but I'm pretty sure that a hole is less good for cars than a hole

filled with copies of that brochure which said, remember, a giant picture of Keir Stama and the words change. We didn't know quite what that would mean in the end, did we? They did keep it in one sense. They just changed Kirstama. Okay. So before we get on to you a more kind of, I suppose, retail initiatives like event, okay. Let's get back to the $5 million crypto donations, spending more time in Clarkson, Washington. Some of this is a judgment on the incumbent candidate who is another character, not a character who dresses an event, but a character who presents himself for the pint of beer. Dress is in a bin. How dare you?

Now, tell us why this guy, why do you think he shouldn't be the MP? Why should your opponent, your main opponent, Nigel Farage, not be the member of Parliament for Clacton? That's a good question. I suppose in one sense, my argument is that whether or not he sort of could or should be the member of Parliament for Clacton, that is the decision for the voters of Clacton, right? So in a sense, it's not for me to say, do I think I could be a... and I think this is where Alastair is sort of leaning towards. Do I think that I, a space warrior from Sigma 9, could be a better local champion of Clacton, Walton, J. Wick,

and those wheelie, of course, than Nigel Farage. Yes, I do. And do you think you would be a better member of parliament in general? That, I mean, that your values, your views, your policies are going to be sounder than Nigel Farage's? I think if I didn't say that or think that, I'm in the wrong place. And what's your sense in Nigel Farage's appeal? Why do you think people voted for him in the first place? That's a good question.

And, you know, there are lots of people out there who still will vote for Nigel Farage. And that is their rights. Okay. You know, that is democracy. You may not agree with that. I may not agree with that. But we're going to move towards the old Brexit Fandango, aren't we? No.

No, no, no. Because we want to find out what you're going to use. No, no. Well, my point is, the country was almost split down the middle, right? Yeah. So 4852 that time. And Nigel had 46% of the vote, I believe, in 2024. So 54% didn't vote for him.

So there's a, he's got a groundswell. Well, he did. Who knows? Maybe these things that have occurred might change it. But my job is to persuade people who don't like him that I'm a better option. Well, one of your things, I think, I mean, Alison, listen, one of the things, presumably he's got. to do is mobilize non-voters. If 54% of people didn't vote for Frasch last time, turnout's going to be very important. And presumably part of the turnout is really getting people feeling that Nigel Farage

is a bad thing, that he is a bad human being, he'd be a bad member of parliament, he's not the guy you want representing you. I need to clarify your statement. There's a part one, yes, mobilize non-voters. part two turn them into voters. There's no point mobilising them, taking them to weather spoons or whatever. They've got to go to the polling booth, Rory. Come on. You, okay. Join the dots, mates.

You are here in London. Earlier in the day, you've been talking to international media. Yes. And how much time are you spending in Clacton? What do you identify as Clacton's biggest problems and what policies do you have to resolve them? Okay. You ask me three questions. there. So the first one, how much time have I spent in Clacton? Probably about as much as the

incumbent MP, right? As I pledged to spend more. Which unfortunately is not a great deal. It's a low bar. Supposedly. Supposedly. I'm not sure anyone's entirely sure. You know, you'll have to watch this hyperspace, Alistair, see what occurs there. But you know, I've got, I've got various things to do. There are various ways to campaign in Clacton, you know. And what was the second bit? What ideas do you have, what policies do you have to help people of Clacton and some of the poorer areas in particular. Okay, well, it's in the manifesto, but to...

But they're not going... Their lives are not going to be changed by Wayne Rooney being the Eurovision Song Contest Summariser. They bloody are. Are they? Why wouldn't they be? They're not going to get better schooling or better healthcare as a result of

Wayne Rooney being a summariser on the Eurovision Song Contest. No, they'll have better souls, Alistair. But anyway, that's not the point in the manifesto I was referring to, and you damn well know it. Now, point one, I will bring fame, prestige and greater economic riches to the area. Can you imagine what I do to the tourist dollar? I'm going to make it rain, sunshine. If you win, if you win Campan Face, you won't be allowed to be yourself in Parliament.

That thing has to come off. Not true. Why not true? Because the BBC, who I know you trust implicitly, told me live on news nights, that MPs are genuinely debating how to change. the rules so that if they vote bin face, they get bin face. Now, you might think that British members of Parliament should be working out how to fix the sodding economy, but apparently that's what they were spending their time doing. All power to their elbow. You're now dependent upon them,

which is not a good place to be. There's my point exactly. Who wants to be dependent on the current state of Parliament? I'm offering to change all that. And we need to finish this question. How else am I going to do? So just by being me, I'll raise some. money. By winning, I will save the voters of Clacton, 350 grand from another by-election, right? Stick that on a bus. That's 350,000 quid before I've even started. I know it's not going to match your salaries, but that's a good few nurses, right? So there's that one. I'm going to make Walton Pier just as great as Clacton Pier. Tell us a little bit about those two peers. Why is Walton Pier not as great? Have you not done your research? No,

tell us about Walton Pier. We've read the manifesto. You say, Walton Pier is going to be as good as Clapton Pier. How much does that cost? Well, it depends, really. I mean, there's the reputational greatness. I mean, we're getting into the semantic debate,

Rory's licking his lips, about the word greatness, yes? Make America great again. Make Walton Pier great again. Just by me saying it, it gets greater for a start. But I'll give you a little titbit. Nigel Farage did a social.

media post celebrating 155 years of Clacton Pier. Anyone could have read that on Wikipedia. So I put my post out celebrating 196 years of Walton, Old Pier and New Pier. It's even more historic. So I think we need to celebrate that. Give it UNESCO World Heritage Status, Rory. Cambine face, Rory Stewart, quick break him back for more. So that's how the magic happens.

Altie one. Hang on. Yeah, you're good. Rory Stewart, Alecester Campbell. That was brilliant. Quick break, and then we'll be back for more. That's much better. Hear that? It's your money calling. It wants a promotion.

Elevate your savings with the Scotia high-interest savings account. Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest. Conditions apply. Visit Scotiabank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. Summer heats up in FX's. The Shards. Set in 80s, Los Angeles, the Shards follows a group of beautiful, privileged prep school students

who are preyed on by The Trawler, a serial killer targeting teenagers across the city. This fever dream of youth, beauty, sex, and mystery is a must see. FX's The Shards, streaming August 5th on Hulu on Disney Plus. Sign up now at Disneyplus.com. When you were putting together your manifesto, there are two things going on, I guess, in a manifesto. So one is laying out stuff which is about what you're going to do in the future.

The other is stuff which is implicitly criticizing what your predecessor has done. You're not an incumbent, right? You're a candidate for change. You're a candidate for change. So I guess one of the things that was frustrating me when I was looking at earlier statements is that there's more potential for really pointing out some of the ways in which Nigel Farage has gone wrong. Right. So some of your pledges, it would be nice to hear.

more pledges where we felt this is showing us something ludicrous or corrupt or absurd about it. I mean, I'd like references to Posh George to successful aristocrats and all this kind of stuff. No, no? No, I value your critique. Okay. And I'm relishing this debate, but I disagree entirely with your premise. Okay. So just to dismantle it piece by piece.

Firstly, I do agree that a manifesto is made of two. fundamental parts. Okay. Yep. Because the word manifesto itself comes from the root words manifest, meaning abundantly clear, and O, meaning nothing whatsoever. That's what you guys do. But I'm different. And so you need to change your rationale. And so no, my specific policies are to not be mounting ad hominem attacks in a manifesto. Why? Because you've just proven my point, without me putting it in my manifesto, you've just gone posh, George, Harbourn, five million quid. Why do I need to waste my time when I have my minions here in their lovely untied, unbuttoned shirts doing it for me? You see? So I'm one step ahead of you. I'm playing

nine D chess, Rory. Can you win this by-election? Probably not. But, you know, there's a chance, isn't there? Why do you say probably not? Well, because the the forces of Nigel, apparently, have been mustered even from Manchester. They're putting it all in. And let's be fair, he has a sitting majority, which even the conservatives probably from the last election

would have done well to surmount. So you're talking about a bin-shaped alien who just scored 95 votes, a Dolly Parton, 95, coming from that in June to becoming a member of parliament in August.

No, I'm not saying it's impossible. In fact, look at the book I brought. You're holding it right there. I have got the memoir of none other than the human Martin Bell, accidental MP. An inspiration to you. Quite right. He even wore an interesting suit.

Lovely suit. Not as good as mine. I was the person who persuaded him to do this. Well, yeah. I was. And when the Farage announced that he wasn't standing in Clacton, I wondered whether there wouldn't be a way of getting something like him to stand instead of Tory, labor, et cetera. That's what I thought would happen.

And you could argue it has. Did you wait until that kind of thing might have happened? Did you think, no, this is my moment? Well, this is my perfect moment, as Martin McCutcheon would say. Can't be the first time you've quoted her on this program. But it's a good question. Well, my instinct was to send a little message saying when I found out the by-election was on, Game on Nige.

That's all I said. And then next thing I know, the British media, the international media, the Sigma-9 media, and gone, boom, it's BinFace versus French. So that you've kind of constructed that narrative yourself. I knew there'd be more candidates. I knew about the David Davis president. And I wasn't even here then. How could, let me ask you that, both of you.

How could reform have not, I talked about 9D chess. How could they not have predicted that this would have happened? Tell me, how? Given that David Davis found himself in the same predicament. Yes. He had, was it, 26 candidates? Something like that. And also given.

Martin Bell. The interesting thing, though, is David Davis. A candidate such as yourself from another galaxy wasn't able to achieve the prominence that you've managed to achieve this. I mean, I've always been a great fan of yours back to when we were doing stuff together. But this is remarkable. You're in a much stronger position in this election than you've ever been before. That's kind of you to say, just to clarify, when he talks about things we did before, back in the late 2010s, me and Rory were briefly in a short-lived electronic pop duo. We were. The pet shop lads.

The pet shop lads. It didn't work. It didn't work very well. Well, partly because we look very different. I mean, I feel it's almost alien species. I can see the similarities, actually. Thank you. But underneath the surface, all of us.

Yes, there's more in common, would you not say? But I answer my question a bit more. Because there is hubris. Nigel Farage was on a role. He thought he was on a role. and he had the financial stuff, finally getting some scrutiny, it's coming in on him,

and he thought, because he has the media, right-wing media broadly on his side, if I do this, they will feel they have to come up against me because I'm the man of the moment. And as soon as I think it was, Kemi Baden,

up was the first one said, not playing, and then everybody else fell into place. He was exposed for a lack of particular mouse. I'm slightly with the count, because they did the same to David Davis. Everyone refused to run against him when he tried to pull the track.

Yeah, but this is different. Because Nigel Farage is somebody who thinks that he could be the next prime minister. And he said, it's me against the establishment. And it turns out, no, it's you against a bin. Even if he gets a landslide and you get 95 votes again, he's lost already. Exactly. So there I agree with you that he cannot win.

Numerically, he may indeed win, but morally, he cannot win. What's a good result for you, though? If he strikes me down, I will become more powerful than he can possibly imagine. imagine that all he can say is that he defeated a bin. So he loses all his elan, all his grace. Then he's going to get whipped into the parliamentary committee. They're going to have a recall petition. You'll be back again.

And of course, he'll then have to decide whether he wants to stand in that election or simply say, I've done my thing, I've got my mandate from the people of Clacton and the blob is out to get me, like the prisoner. Something like that. The $350,000, is that the estimated cost of this by-election? Apparently, I read in one of your newspapers that the estimated cost in today's money of a British by-election, but $348,000 to be precise. I've done my reading.

And your prediction is that he gets back into Parliament and he'll be knocked out again by a parliamentary committee and he'll have to do another by-election. But that's not my prediction. That's all the parties, right? Yeah, yeah. Their supposition is that they will be fighting the next one. So will you, if you're going to be fighting the next one as the sole candidate against Raj, come back to us?

Maybe we could work a little bit on the strategy in advance and get you a good lead-up in because I think he could win this. There's an inherent critique there, isn't that, Alastair? He's basically saying you haven't really thought this true in the strategy's weak. That's what he's saying. He's saying it less politely than others would. Listen, where did I come in the 2021 London mayoral election? ninth out of 20

with 92,000 first and second choice votes. It's good. Where did you come, Rory? Nowhere. Now where? No way. Now why don't you come on my podcast? 92,000 first to say it's pretty good.

It's pretty good. I enjoyed your podcast. One final question, something that's happening right now as we speak shortly before you go off back to Clacton. Yes. And that's this issue of postal votes and proxy votes. Yes. Have you...

You can't drink the water. Have you got a strategy even for that? You're on top of the postal vote. So you're on top of voter ID. You're on top of proxies. Short answer, no. But equally, I have seen the postal ballots drop. Have you seen the photos?

I've seen the ballot, yeah. And have you seen how beautifully prominent? You are? It's lovely. It's kind of spot on. Number two, number three, bang, centre. Nigel, it looks like one of those Andrex toilet roll commercials. Arguably, I mean, not as absorbent, but maybe it should be doing the same job.

Don't do that, voters, by the way. That will spoil your ballot in more ways than one. I can't emphasize that enough. But Nigel's right down the middle. He's hard to spot. So, you know, I feel like my work is being done for me by the cosmic power of alphabetical order. Very good. Well, Count, thank you very much for joining us. It's been my pleasure.

And I hope you do make it. And it's interesting your decision not to attack your opponent. Very interesting. It's quite Andy Burma did. It's quite Andy Burnham, isn't it? Exactly. It's quite Andy Burnham. Do you think people are actually just sick of negativity

and they want a positive bin against this negative snarling reform UK leader? I did notice that that's what Burnham had done. Does it gain any extra traction from me saying the stuff you've said? than from you saying it anyway. And I would argue not. My job is to provide an alternative. Like I said, we haven't gone through the other policies. We haven't mentioned the big one,

which was that oil and gas companies should be forced to pay for solar panels for everyone. And I love that came from a child. It did, Jack, age 10. So this is my thing. It's their planet and mine. It's not yours. And you guys are screwing it.

And so this kid, Loads of children have been sending me their manifestos. So I wanted to start to honour that. As any other, Alistair, has any other party in electoral history put a manifesto commitment in from a 10-year-old? No. And the only thing they've done is occasionally they get 10-year-olds to design their Christmas cards. But I think what you've done in this is much, much better. I would say it's at least slightly better.

A lot better. Yes. A lot better. I think on that alone, where I are resident of Clacton, the, the, The oil and gas companies paying for solar panels from Jack H-10, I would vote for you. Eat that, Stuart. Yeah, I will, I eat that along with a subsidised croissant. No, I would definitely vote for you.

No, I'm not subsidising the cuisons in fact. I mean, I will. But I'm going big on the 99th. It's a seaside town. Okay. I do like to be beside the seaside. Very good. Well, thank you.

Thank you, Count, for coming on. And very, very good luck. And hope to see you soon. If not, maybe in the House comes, maybe in the House of Lords. Lord Count, Count. Oh, no, I can't do that because remember my original election, I came down in disguise. Yes. In the guise of Lord Buckethead.

And you got into trouble, didn't you? Well, there's a little tit for tat on the planet copyright. So I renounced my peerage. You renounce your question. Resporned in my true form. I'm the only politician ever to feel better after kicking the bucket. How about that? Very good.

All right. See you soon. Thank you again. Thank you so much. Both of you. The rest is politics. In fact, I would say everything is politics. It's a misleading title.

Everything, even football. It's all, look at Infantino. You should rename it, everything is politics. Yeah, well, we could do that. Thank you. Bye-bye. So, Rory, we should probably tell our listeners and viewers that there was quite a serious debate

within the whole kind of restless politics team about whether we should even do Camp Benface, whether you and I as serious, serious, political figures should be sitting down with a with a dustbin. But I thought there was some very put on side of the comedy, much of which is very funny. But I actually thought there was some quite good serious points that emerged from that, not least the fact that I was so overwhelmed and confused as the resident linguist, I confused my Latin with my Greek right at the start of the damn thing. That was pretty amazing. A huge bit, huge bit of Homeric Greek. I mean,

you can just recite huge chunks of Homer. It's a reminder that inside that, bin is a guy who studied, I think, classics at Oxford. So it's kind of weird thing going that he doesn't actually come from Sigma 9. Yeah, he's the establishment, isn't he? He's the Nigel Farage. Why hasn't he been using the classics at Oxford line of attack? Do you also sound like rather than coming from Sigma 9, he might have come from Wales? Did you, do you pick that up? Did you think? Where do you think came from? What are the accent sounded like? No, I don't want to dispel or destroy the magic. Okay. But I, because he was a little bit late and because I was getting a bit agitated because as you know I'm

obsessed about punctuality I was kind of chivying him along and he wasn't a little bit late he was like half an hour late right yeah because it took him a long time all right to get into the gear so you know not for me to expose what goes on under there but there was some sort of little weird box yeah on his chest under the thing which i think is slightly distorting the voice And I think also the other thing I that I thought was there's quite a lot of kind of stuff being tied on in different parts of the body lots of pads everywhere lots of he had a dresser He had somebody who was sort of having to put this stuff This stuff on him and then as for the as for the bin It's like so that the he can see through what we think is his mouth right so he is able to react to us right because otherwise he wouldn't be able to walk anyway just be walking into walls

all the time. But I think, look, the point about the Homeric Greek and the point about the quick wit is that he's clever. He's a very clever guy. And I thought the most important political point he made, I thought, was when he said that whatever the result, I'm not sure as a campaigner, you should ever say, I'm not going to win, or I don't think I'll win. I think he should have been, look, strange things happen. The world is in a very strange place. People like the challenger. etc against the incumbent. Farage is the establishment in this contest. I'm against him.

He could have done all that. But what I thought was really interesting was when he said, whatever the result, Farage has lost. Because he's going to stand on that platform with 30-odd kind of weirdos of misfits.

Many of them dressed in very strange dress. The image to the world will be, what's a strange country. But for Farage to take anything out of this other than he's survived an embarrassment. What about his other point that he kept making, which is that he'd obviously listen to the rest of his politics and listened to our critique? And one of the things he'd said is he disagrees with the idea that he should even subtly be attacking Farage through either his manifesto or statements, that he leaves the other people to attack Fras. What do you think about that as a technique?

Well, he does tack him through the manifesto. When he talks about, you know, spend more time in Clacton than Washington, I'm not going to take any dodged donations from people on Earth. so he's going for Farage. I thought it was interesting. And again, goes back to it, he had clearly watched Andy Burnham's approach in Makerfield. And he probably thought

Andy Burnham was done better by not constantly just going after Rob Kenyon, the reform candidate. So he's decided to go down that route. I think there's something in it. I think there's something in that. I think that what he's going to find hard is the, I didn't get the sense

of any organisation behind him. I would have thought, as an independent, running, he could have got, he would have been able to get, because I found this in the London Merrill thing, he would have been able to get thousands of young volunteers to leaflet for him, knock on doors for him. And actually, it wouldn't be very difficult for him to show real affection and local knowledge and understanding of the Clackson constituents. He's obviously a bright guy.

He could have really got out into those villages. I think he's slightly missing a trick here. He's too much still in the mindset of I'm a comedy candidate. he could have actually gone a little bit more Martin Bell on this. I kept the head, but mobilise that vote. Get those leaflets out there and say, look, I may be an alien space law, but I do know something about this constituency, and actually I wouldn't be too bad a member of Parliament.

Yeah, and also, if you think about it, so that Labor and the Tories and the Lib Dems and Restore and the Greens, none of them are standing. They've all got members and activists who really don't like Nigel Farage. being their MP. Now, what effort has he made to go and get those people who love a bit of politics? Party members tend to like campaigning to get them to say, you know, they can go out wearing a labour, you know, badge and say, I'm Labor, but I want you to vote for. Go, Labor, go to

Labor people and say, vote bin face, damage Farage, show that Clacton's fighting back. That's what I wanted to hear him do. So, I think, listen, he's adding to the gaiety of the nation. You know yesterday he actually was briefly the foreign press association i mean normally they have like the foreign secretary or you know the permanent secretaries of the civil service or people like you and me going and blathering on about what we think so he's sitting there and he's been talking to journalists from all over the world he's what i really hope he doesn't do is use this to build the bin face profile so that next year we see him in the jungle or on traitors or on all that stuff i think he should try to become the MP for Clacton.

The final reason I was hopeful about him becoming an MP is that actually there's a lot of precedent, as you mentioned when we were covering this a couple of weeks ago, of comedy candidates actually becoming quite serious people. I mean, actually they end up as mayors and they end up doing quite a good job. I mean, Zelensky famously was a comedian who'd done a show on pretending to be present and actually is a really good president. At another extreme, Bepegrio in Italy was a comedian. And so what's interesting is, is it?

Is he willing to make the transition? The pirate parties, I think, started a slightly comic, fancy dress things that ended up in government. Is he prepared to make the transition? And it wouldn't be very difficult to do. He ought to be able to say, listen, along with the jokes, as an aside, here are two or three things that I think could make people's lives better in Claxon and I will campaign for if you'll let me. Yeah, yeah. So there we are. There was one, I was in Iceland recently, interviewing the Prime Minister for leading and there was a

candidate there who started out as a joke and is now a frontline politician. So it, you know, it does. And of course we had the, we had the monkey in Hartleypool, the mascot from the football club who became the mayor and seemed to go down pretty well as the mayor. So look, I think, I think he adds to the gaiety of the nation. He is part of a long British tradition that the rest of the world finds a bit weird, but sort of, you know, reminds us the eccentricity is not a bad thing. And, you know, he's making Farage look utterly ridiculous. So what's not to love about him? What's not to love?

Well, thank you, Alistair. Have a great day. See you soon.