There’s lots to dislike and get infuriated by in British politics. But, Count Binface baffling a Sky News journalist at a by-election that may well result in a new prime minister by the end of the year is definitely one of the more brilliant quirks of our political system.
Overnight, Andy Burnham stormed to victory in Makerfield, picking up 55% of the vote and paving the way for him to launch a leadership challenge to Keir Starmer.
It was a disastrous night for Reform, who had been expected to challenge Burnham in a close run race but ended up some 9,000 adrift of the Labour man – although Nigel Farage is already wheeling out the excuses.
Given the magnitude of the by-election and the media attention would get, the candidate list was always bound to attract a number of novelty candidates.
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This proved to be the case, and, along with the leader of the Monster Raving Loony Party and a man dressed as a fox, one such novelty candidate was the iconic Count Binface.
As the esteemed political figure he is, the Count was present for much of the, er, count in Wigan and was more than keen to do a few press interviews.
This included one impromptu chat with Sky News’s Jon Craig in the early hours of the morning, which went about as well as you might expect.
Clearly, Craig had no idea who Count Binface was, much to the count’s disappointment, and things only went downhill from there.
What ensued was a cringe-worthy – but pretty funny – conversation where Binface was quizzed on his policies, whether he would get his deposit back and if he lived in the constituency.
Craig was baffled throughout, commenting afterwards that “I don’t usually interview candidates like that.”
The chat was then shared on X by Binface, who said: “I enjoyed every second of this interview. Which makes one of us…”
You can watch it below.
In the end, Count Binface won 95 votes in the Makerfield by-election, finishing in seventh place.