Earl Binface, a frequent satirical character in British elections, is challenging the Prime Minister for the parliamentary seat representing Richmond and Northallerton.
Most polls predict Mr Sunak will remain in power, as have his predecessors. But he has low national support, with an Ipsos poll published on Saturday showing him just four percentage points more popular than Ms Vinface, who was in turn more popular than former Prime Minister Liz Truss.
This candidate is Big policy ideas These include banning loud snacks in theatres, building “at least one affordable house” and inviting other European countries to join the UK in a sort of reverse Brexit. He also wants to represent the UK at Eurovision.
Naturally, the leaders of the major parties in the UK election are in the eye of the British media, making it difficult for foreign correspondents to interview them one-on-one. But Count Vinface, played by 44-year-old comedian John Harvey, was quick to respond to our request for an interview, and he had a lot to say about the early election on July 4th, which he’s calling “VinDependence Day.”
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Asked about the noisy snacking policy, Mr Binface said: “What’s the point of going out and spending half your mortgage and then not being able to hear anything because of noisy snacking? It’s madness.”
Harvey first ran in the UK election in 2017 as a satirical candidate. Candidates who meet age and nationality requirements must pay 500 pounds ($634) and submit the signatures of 10 voters in the constituency in which they plan to run. There, Harvey declared himself a challenger to Prime Minister Theresa May, playing the role of Lord Buckethead, a character inspired by a parody Star Wars film who has contested UK general elections since 1987.
But Harvey ran into a “copyright planet problem” when Todd Durham, the American film director and creator of Buckethead, threatened to sue him, “so I reincarnated as my true self, Earl Vinface.” In 2019, he clashed with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, another person officially authorized to pose as Buckethead.
When asked if he could speak to Harvey, a straight-faced Vinface fired back with a warning: “Your belief in the character is starting to crumble. … And when that happens, this humour will disintegrate faster than a laser beam.”
Who on earth would vote for someone like that? In the recent London Mayoral election, Vinface won over 24,000 votes on a platform of capping the price of croissants.
That’s perhaps not surprising in a country where people voted for “Boatie McBoatface” when asked to name a $288 million research vessel, and where some 400,000 people said they were Jedi Knights from Star Wars when asked a census question about religious identity.
But at this moment there is real dissatisfaction with politics, anger fuelled by government scandals, the impact of Brexit, the rising cost of living, political turmoil and strained public services. A recent UK Social Attitudes Survey revealed that public trust and confidence in politics is at an all-time low.
“If you turn up to the polling station not knowing what to do and see Lord Buckethead or Earl Binface you might think you’re sending a message by voting for him,” said Martin Baxter, founder of political consultancy Electral Calculus.
Baxter said satirical candidates could sometimes have political meaning, as when the Monster Raving Loony Party, which encouraged people to “vote for insanity”, outperformed the remaining Social Democrats in a special election, highlighting the end of the party’s era.
(The Official Monster Raving Loony Party is fielding 22 candidates in this general election.)
Asked what he would consider a good outcome on the Fourth of July, Coun Binface replied: “I don’t want to be teary-eyed or covered in tears. If I get votes that’s fine, if I get zero it’s fine. At the end of the day it’s about being there that matters. This will be the moment that concludes 14 global years of the worst government leadership a major country has experienced.”
Mr Binface said standing in village halls and leisure centres with party leaders at 3am when the results were announced was “a true leveller and, in my view, what makes British democracy particularly wonderful and unique”.
As the 2019 Uxbridge and South Ruislip results were announced, Mr Johnson, who had just led his party to a stunning victory, took the podium and said: “I want to thank Sir Buckethead, Elmo, all my fellow candidates… I’m sorry if I can’t name them all.”
This year, Elmo is running in Keir Starmer’s constituency, so if the polls are correct, he may even be onstage when Starmer, the Labour leader and prime ministerial candidate, holds his gala.
