The votes were being counted and the media had gathered for the moment that Andy Burnham, his sights on Downing Street, would be elected as the MP for Makerfield in greater Manchester. But Nick the Flying Brick, a candidate on numerous occasions for the Monster Raving Loony party, could not help but be distracted. How could it be that the candidate across the Edge Conference Centre with a silver bin on his head had managed to secure the 10 local nominations necessary to stand?<\/p>\n
The Flying Brick, real name Nick Delves, 60, who is also treasurer for the Loony party, had knocked doors-a-plenty to get the nominations for his veteran candidate, Howling Laud Hope. Yet, the Flying Brick hadn\u2019t seen any chaps on the streets with bins on their heads. Certainly not in recent days. Not a single one.<\/p>\n
What was the story? Along with his fellow Loony party activist, the Ravin Rodent (a care worker by day), the Flying Brick approached the mysterious silvery figure by the trestle tables.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is very much a one-man band and he goes a bit funny if you use his real name,\u201d said the Flying Brick of Count Binface. \u201cHe told me he found someone in Makerfield to sort it. We spoke for about 10 minutes. No one has ever seen him without the bin on his head and the conference centre\u2019s air con was broken so he must have been so hot. Then I asked if I could take a photo with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
What happened next perturbed the Flying Brick. \u201cHe asked what we were going to do with it,\u201d he recalled. \u201cWe said we would probably put it on our website, and he said: \u2018No no.\u2019 He said he would sue if we took a picture.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he was maybe half joking? He was half in, half out of character. He was looking at the cameras, so we took a picture anyway \u2013 it wasn\u2019t great, to be honest. But he runs a very tight operation. We have to take our hats off: he is totally out-shadowing us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Count Binface speaks to the media during the vote count for the Makerfield byelection. Photograph: Adam Vaughan\/EPA<\/p>\n
Many may have concluded some time ago that British politics could not get any sillier, but this week Nigel Farage resigned as the MP in Clacton in order to stand for \u2026 the seat of Clacton. His reasoning was that it was not for the parliamentary commissioner for standards but the constituency to decide whether he had done anything wrong in deciding not to declare a \u00a35m gift from the cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne<\/a> and funds from the convicted fraudster George Cottrell<\/a> for his staffing, security and housing.<\/p>\n \u201cThis will be a people versus the establishment byelection,\u201d the Reform UK leader said, before a further unexpected twist. After the other main parties said they would not stand in a \u201cstunt\u201d election, Count Binface issued a statement: \u201cI will be a unity candidate and pledge to build at least one affordable house. Nigel Farage<\/a> says he wants \u2018the people versus the establishment\u2019. So be it. Leave him to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Is Binface the new Martin Bell<\/a> \u2013 the man in the white suit who stood in 1997 for all-things sane and good in the constituency of Tatton against the sleaze-engulfed Tory MP Neil Hamilton? Is the man in the mask the hero the country needs, if not deserves?<\/p>\n Probably not. Binface did not want to talk to the Guardian unless it was in character. The Monster Raving Loony party are among those who intend to stand an array of oddly named candidates as well. \u201cBecause we can,\u201d said their leader, Howling Laud Hope.<\/p>\n But Binface, real name, Jon Harvey, has certainly become a media favourite since Tuesday, enjoying a moment in the limelight to talk of his policies of nationalising the singer Adele and capping the price of croissants at \u00a31.<\/p>\n It is Harvey\u2019s stated aim to have policies that get a giggle but maybe make the voter think. Even the Daily Mail, sympathetic to Farage\u2019s anti-immigration party, could not avoid poking a little fun. \u201cFarage: Binface byelection is deadly serious,\u201d was its splash headline on Thursday. An inside comment piece carried the headline: \u201cFarage is learning that when voters are shouting at you, it\u2019s bad. When they\u2019re laughing at you, it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n There is international interest too. In France, he has been styled Comte T\u00eate-de-poubelle, while in Spain he is El Conde Cubo de Basura.<\/p>\n It was most probably not how Farage expected it to pan out. Raheem Kassam, a former adviser to Farage, who describes himself as a journalist, turned detective on the novelty candidate.<\/p>\n Count Binface with Andy Burnham and a candidate for Protect British Wildlife after Burnham won the Makerfield byelection. Photograph: Jon Super\/AP<\/p>\n \u201cAll this Count Binface talk got me looking into who this guy really is,\u201d he wrote in a tantalising tee-up of his big reveal. \u201cJonathan David Harvey \u2013 who earns his living making comedy shows for the BBC \u2013 is an Oxbridge liberal elitist who has screeds of anti-Brexit, anti-Trump and anti-British rants on his Twitter going back over a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n Not that Kassam doesn\u2019t enjoy a laugh as much as the next man. \u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong, I think Binface is a hilarious character, and Harvey is clearly a talented satirist,\u201d he went on. \u201cBut pretending he\u2019s just some random bloke in a suit having a laugh is nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n The tradition of novelty candidates in Britain arguably began with Lieutenant Commander Bill Boaks, a heavily decorated war hero, who from the 1951 election onwards stood in 28 votes on the single issue of road safety while riding around on a heavily modified bicycle plastered with large slogans.<\/p>\n It was, though, David Sutch, better known as Screaming Lord Sutch, who made the role his own. He first stood in the 1960s in a byelection forced by the resignation of John Profumo after the famous sex and spies scandal. He then formed the Monster Raving Loony party in the early 1980s, satirising the political class while floating bizarre and yet strangely attractive policies.<\/p>\n According to one friend, Harvey, whose father performed as a drummer in the same band as Sutch, believes he is the natural heir. There are parallels to be found. Sutch, who took his own life in 1999, did not read classics like Harvey at the University of Oxford, and he was a showman, not a comic. But there was tragedy in his past, as with Harvey.<\/p>\n David Sutch, better known as Screaming Lord Sutch, at Piccadilly Circus underground station in 1960. Photograph: Frank Martin\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Sutch was just 10 months old when his father, a war reserve police officer, was killed in an accident. Harvey, 46, from Croydon, has spoken of living in 11 houses in the first 11 years of his life amid the chaos that came with his dad\u2019s alcoholism. He has described his father, an estate agent who died in 2005 at the age of 57, as \u201cJekyll and Hyde sponsored by Strongbow\u201d.<\/p>\n In 2015, Harvey found the body of his older brother, Dan, 43, in his London flat. Obese and an undiagnosed diabetic, he had fallen into a hypoglycaemic coma. Harvey wrote a book about coping with his grief through sport \u2013 a passion he shared with his brother whose ashes are scattered outside the London Stadium at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.<\/p>\n It was a couple of years later that Harvey, who is married to the comedic actor, Sarah Daykin, began his political career, not as Binface but perhaps the more storied character of Lord Buckethead.<\/p>\n It all began with Harvey watching a VHS with a friend at Oxford of a film called Gremloids which included a Darth Vader-inspired figure. They subsequently learned that a businessman called Mike Lee, who had bought the video rights to the movie, had stood in 1987 dressed as this Lord Buckethead against Margaret Thatcher in her Finchley constituency. Lee hoped to flog some videos.<\/p>\n