American Reacts to Count Binface 

I'm old enough to remember the glory days of the Monster Raving Loony Party and Screaming Lord Sutch...

I love the innocence of an American who thinks anyone's policies are serious.

We once had a complete joke candidate called Boris Johnson.

Political satire is always serious in the UK. Also a lot of things in his manifesto are drawing attention to very serious issues but obviously a lot of specific cultural references are lost on non-Brits.

one of his policies is that the prime minister should be paid the average wage of a nurse - that was in London mayor manifesto. I would agree with that, as well as water oompany bosses swimming in rivers

Fun fact: he used to stand under the name Lord Buckethead before he got sued for copyright

Tyler just to let you know but count binface beat the british fascist party in terms of votes too

This is how seriously most brits take our politics unlike the batshit crazy US

This is real democracy and freedom…

The "Czech's on the Irish Border" joke is a play on words. The Good Friday Agreement was a diplomatic agreement between all parties in the Northern Ireland situation which resolved a lot of the conflicts, it wasn't perfect but it brought peace after decades of partisan conflict. One of its componants was a removal of border checks on the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland border. People no longer needed to show passports or go through customs on that border. The current government threw it out as part of Brexit. As a result there's been a mess over where checks will take place - with the Tories (the current government till next week) claiming that there will be "No Checks on the Irish border" while setting up to either have checks there, or a seperate internal border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. If they do the first, checks on the border, it's going to start ramping up tensions once again. If they do the second, an internal border within the UK, it's going to set up a section of the UK that's effectively still in the EU since it'll need to match up to EU law. They can't do that as it'll show just how fucking shit not matching EU law is as food standards and safty drop through the floor everywhere in the UK but NI. Now the joke comes from the name of people from Czechia, a former Soviet state that is also known as the Czech Republic, and who's people are known as Czech's. The UK has regular calls from right wing groups and agitators to throw out people from eastern Europe. As a result his joke plays both on the Tories tearing up an international agreement for the sake of Brexit, and their devisive anti-foreigner retoric.

"Children in Need" is a charity, Pudsey is their mascot. Oh, and the "build at least one affordable house" was a direct jab at the leaders of the main parties and their hazy promises to build affordable housing, and the repeated failure of government for much of the last decade to build any.

Joke candidates are a bit of a UK political tradition. We used to have a collection of them under the banner of 'The Monster Raving Looney Party'. Quite often the British people are so demoralised by how bad our politicians are that we would rather vote for a joke candidate than our main-party candidates.

This is what real free speech looks like.

Count Binface for Prime Minister. At least the bins will be collected on time.

Unlike the US where BILLIONS of dollars are spent on the General Election, the U.K. has a spending limit of only 35 Million( with an M) for each political party and people like Count Binface only need to spend a very low amount to pay for registration and other paperwork. This system must utterly confuse Americans, with their high spending approach being so ingrained after all these years.

Guy with a bin on his head is still not as insane as MTG!

I think the first guy to do this was Screaming Lord Sutch representing the monster raving loony party? A very long standing tradition?

Here in Canada, we have the Rhinoceros Party. In past elections, they have advocated repealing the law of gravity, outlawing winter, building a dome over the country, building a bridge from Vancouver to Tokyo, and many other silly and sensible policies. Also in UK politics, fellow youtuber Tom Scott ran in a London election as Mad Captain Tom

A vote for Binface is a protest

I love how wonderfully bonkers we Brits can be. 😊 In the latest London Mayoral election, he beat the far-right candidate by some distance, which is also something to be proud of.

Remember, the british public once voted to name a research vessel "Boaty McBoatface" it got veto'd and they named an autonomous submersible with the name instead. When it comes to silliness, us Brits are hard to rival

Usually these candidates have more sense than real candidates, unfortunately people vote for parties not policies

There is a long history of 'novelty' candidates presenting at various UK elections. The most famous of these candidates include Count Binface (not (as you've mentioned) his real name) and Screaming Lord Sutch of the Monster Raving Loony Party. What you need to remember is the following 1) The higher the profile of the individual contest, the more of these candidates will be attracted to it. This is because when the results of the contest are announced, the candidates will normally appear in a row behind the returning officer announcing the candidates, and, in a high-profile contest, there will be strong media interest (including tv cameras) at the announcement. 2) People vote for these candidates either because they can't stand the mainstream parties or can't distinguish between them, simply because they don't value their votes enough to evaluate the policies of the mainstream parties and they don't want to spoil their vote - or possibly because there's one particular policy that might attract them to the novelty candidate. 3) The contests mentioned include elections for Mayor of London. The current Mayor of London is Sadiq Khan, currently on his 3rd 4-year term. The electorate for Mayor of London is several million - and Count Binface has quite a high profile, so it's not THAT difficult to guess that 25k Londoners might vote for him. 4) The other contests mentioned included Richmond and Northallerton (constituency/district of current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak) and Uxbridge and South Ruislip (pronounced Rise-lip) (constituency of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson). At the announcing of the results, there is the unusual spectacle of lots of serious people in their serious clothes.....and an array of novelty candidates in various costumes and get-ups. 5) Some of the policies espoused by Count Binface mentioned.... a) The return of Ceefax. Ceefax ('see facts' - get it?) was a supplementary service provided by the BBC. It, alongside the corresponding service Oracle provided by the BBC's competitor ITV, was a listing of information accessed by selecting the relevant BBC channel on tv, then pressing a 'teletext' button on the remote control that would bring up a screen with an index of pages outlining the page content. The viewer then dialled in the relevant page number and the information appeared. There was a maximum of 999 pages (because the page numbers were 3 digits long). The most used of these on both BBC and ITV was probably 888 which was the selection that brought the viewer back to the main screen.....and displayed subtitles for the programme being broadcast. Viewers exited the teletext service by pressing the teletext button a second time in order to return to standard viewing. Ceefax and Oracle met their end after the rise of the internet. b) National Service = Military Service = the Draft. The Conservative Party have, for the 2024 election, announced a policy of reintroducing National Service for young people after secondary school. National Service existed between the end of the 2nd World War and the early 1960s, wasn't very popular I believe, and wasn't necessarily very successful. But the idea appeals to some of the 'older' voters who form the core of the Conservative Party's base. Count Binface's idea is to apply it to former PM's to see how they like it. c) Dunking the Thames Water boss in the Thames. There has been an ongoing scandal in the UK these last few years where the privatised companies responsible for providing drinking water and water/effluent disposal have been releasing vast quantities of polluted and untreated water into the UK's waterways. They've been able to do this because i) the law allows them to do so every so often when atmospheric conditions are relevant (such as after heavy rainfall) and ii) in situations where atmospheric conditions are NOT relevant, it's cheaper to pay the fine associated with illegal release of water than it is to do something definitive about the preventing the release of the water. Thus the water companies have been happy to release sewage and worse into the UK's waterways because they know the penalties are easier to tolerate than fixing the underlying problem. This has been compounded by the fact that the privatised water companies have, for years, been returning big profits to their shareholders AND loading themselves up with debt instead of investing in the infrastructure that they've supposed to be working on. Wildlife has been affected and people get sick when they swim in or take a mouthful of the polluted water. Hence, dunk the boss of Thames Water in the dirty waters of the Thames....

So as a fundamental difference between the political mind set in the UK versus that of the US, Running for office isn't about winning the office. You don't need a party to run, and if you want a party, you only need three people to form one. Most UK political parties aren't realistically trying to win. Their job is to make it harder for the other parties to win. Legally, every joke or single-issue candidate has to be treated by the same seriousness as those from the major candidates. So your single issue parties are given the same questions in open debates as other candidates and can re-frame the questions to be out their key issues. The joke candidate are some of the best for that, because they are very free to call out the major parties on there publicity stunts. Like, I would love to have seen DTJ having to stand and take the criticism from the joke candidates under as UK system. I think he would have had a meltdown. XD

He's standing as MP for Northallerton, which isn't far from me. If I were there, I'd vote for him. He's not only pretty politically shrewd and spits facts from an ordinary citizens perspective, he's actually a really good comedian too (political satire). There's much here to fear for a lot of incumbent MP's if he wins a seat and starts getting taken seriously. Charismatic, funny and with the ear of the people. What's not to fear for a Tory MP particularly (though truth be told, they all need a kick up the arse)? Viva Binface and even his knock off, pound shop counterpart Lord Buckethead.

In my opinion, a political candidate wearing a bin and a knight's chainmail still looks better than one with an orange face, artificially dyed hair, and fake bone spurs. 😅

The minute I saw Ruislip on the Wikipedia page I knew Taylor had no hope of correct pronunciation

In British politics there have over the years been a number of crazy candidates and parties who stand for election. Notably "The Monster Raving Loony Party" started by a minor musician called Screaming Lord Such back in the 1960's. There are now a number of candidates who contest seats all over the country for the party, here is a list of candidates and the constituencies they are contesting in next weeks General Election: Citizen Skwith - Brighton Pavilion The Raving Mr P - Peterborough George Ridgeon - Cheltenham The Iconic Arty Pole - Louth/Horncastle Nick Blunderbuss - Kenilworth/Southam Mark Beech - Aldridge/Brownhills Mad Mike Young - Sittingbourne/Sheppey Howling Laud Hope - North East Hampshire The Mid Bed Minx - Mid Bedfordshire Dame Dixon - Hove/Portslade Barmy Lord Brockman - Mid Worcestershire Chinners - Kingston/Surbiton Lady Lily the Pink - Brecon/Radnorshire Lord Bucket Head - Uxbridge Baron Von Thunderclap - Mid Sussex Farmin’ Lord F’tang Dave - Denton/Reddish Just John - Clacton-on-Sea Sir Archibald Stanton - Dewsbury Badger - Esher/Walton Martin Hogbin - East Surrey Mark CitiZen Lawrence - Chelmsford Lord Sandys - Islington South Incredible Flying Brick - Islington North Earl Elvis of Outwell - South West Norfolk In 2002 in my home town of Hartlepool "Hangus the monkey" alias Stuart Drummond stood for election as Mayor.....and won: see link to BBC news article: www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-tees-22375328

As a regular of the Crown and Treaty pub in Uxbridge, moving the hand dryer in the gents loos to a more suitable place gets my vote every time!

I really wanted him to be the Mayor of London.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="950">15:50</a> "any Czechs on the Irish border should be allowed to stay..." Currently there needs to be custom checks of goods going over the Irish - British border. He is "confusing" the word "checks" and "Czechs" as in the people from the Czech Republic.

The US has exclusively elected aliens since the 80s.

Not sure if you picked up on this, but traditionally when the vote count is announced all the candidates stand on the same stage to hear the results. Which means there are plenty of pictures of prime ministers standing next to Count Binface, and often other joke candidates.

Return of CeeFax and reasonably priced Croissant what's not to like? Yes he is reasonably well known, was well received in London for the mayoral election.

Ceefax was a analog text information system fitted to TVs from the 70's onwards until the switch over to digital, you took your remote control, hit the ceefax button, which gave you an index, and you keyed in a 3 numeral code for a page you wanted. Then you waited for a few minutes. They were tweet sized bites of text (and effectively some ascii art, it was graphicly on par with a Vic-20!) broadcast alongside regular TV signals. Most people used it to check weather forecasts, traffic news, the lottery numbers and sports results. Though news, current affairs and even reviews were also available.

There was a guy a few years ago who dressed up as a monkey for the Hartlepool mayor election ... he won! ... and looked really sheepish afterwards - he didn't expect to actually become the mayor!

Context: Lovejoy is a beloved British TV series.

In one week, today, we shall be voting in our elections.

We're British, we take our joke candidates very seriously 😅 He did beat one of the right wing candidates too

I like count bin face 😂😂😂😂. He is a national treasure!

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="948">15:48</a> This is a world-class pun. Checks on the Irish sea border refers to the restrictions on trade by the European Union. Czechs living on the Irish border is a wordplay on this that refers to European nationals who, in some circumstances, had to leave the UK after Brexit. The ones living on the Border should be allowed to stay there, says Binface.

I note that no one has mentioned the checks/Czechs on the Northern Ireland and Republic border. A wonderful play on words on a very serious and complex question which the present government had no idea it would manifest itself. They are the joke, not the bin man.

Let's say he was running for President. What exactly is he proposing that makes him more eccentric than whichever of the two main candidates you like least?

We all so have the Monster Raving Loony party, who's ambition is to lose their deposit. I believe that there was a candidate who dressed as a monkey in Hartlepool, who won!

Absolutely, being a binface is a full time job . I was a yoghurt carton for 14 years and during that time studied " Crocheting and its Effect on Future Space Travel " . Having achieved a " First " in possibly the nations most useless self tailored Degree , I am now advisor in the Governments Culture and Sport ministry .

Matt Hancock was the Uk Health minister during the covid era - until he got caught snogging his mistress on cctv in Whitehall.. a hugely unpopular person.

Nigel Farage was beaten by a man dressed as a dolphin who went by the name Flipper. There's also a digital AI candidate currently standing in Brighton. I also knew someone from university who stood for the parliamentary seat of Westminster as a pirate.

I thought it was a joke when Trump first spoke about running for president in the US. I can't believe they actually elected him and that they still want him there after all the charges against him.

You may want to look at the Dalek political ads.

All the things in the manifesto are alluding to something serious. For instance, making the water company bosses take a dip/swim in the rivers. This is because of the recently exposed scandal (that they'd tried to cover up) that though the water companies were making record profits (due to post EU deregulation) they were also dumping record amounts of raw untreated sewage and industrial waste being dumped directly into Britain's rivers, watercourses and the sea. We now have the most polluted rivers, watercourses and beaches in Europe. People getting sick from swimming in the sea in some areas. Around Teesside in 2022, the dredging of Teesport to deepen it for bigger vessels, caused a minor ecological disaster. Thousands of dead fish and crabs being washed up on beaches 20/30 miles north and south of the river Tees. And reports from dog walkers of their dogs becoming sick after being walked along the beaches. It's now got so bad a few weeks ago in Dorset the tap water from the reservoir became contaminated, resulting in hundreds of people getting sick and dozens being taken to hospital. So behind most of these manifesto points, there's something being alluded to.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="566">9:26</a> Yes he's on the news. Electoral law requires the tv stations to give air time to all the candidates, or none.

The Official Monster Raving Loony Party, under the leadership of the - now sadly deceased - Screaming Lord Sutch, had some of its policies adopted by the Labour Party - notably the deregulation of radio broadcasting. In the 1960s, the stranglehold of the BBC's radio broadcasting was slightly broken by Radio Luxembourg (pop and rock music), which broadcast to Britain from Luxembourg. There was also Radio Caroline which broadcast from outside the 12-mile territorial limit in the North Sea (very dangerous as they had to have a top-heavy radio mast on the boat, in seas which sometimes destroyed oil rigs). Radio London broadcast to the south of England from a boat in the Thames Estuary. Listening eventually to Government busybodies boarding Caroline and dismantling the equipment, while the DJ, holding back tears, kept broadcasting until the nicrophone was forcibly shut off by the busybody, was tragic! Lord Sutch, a rock musician, had his musical career sabotaged by the BBC which refused to play his records on the grounds that he was obscene. The Labour Party subsequently loosened the stranglehold of the BBC, putting in a pop/rock channel, more local radio, and some commercial radio - Capital Radio and LBC (London Broadcasting Corporation). 'The Times' of London did an obituary Lord Sutch.

Ceefax floored me 😂😂 they aren't 'serious' serious but make satirical points e.g. pollution in rivers. It's also a way of posting a protest vote.

Count Binface is very well known, there is also another character called Lord Buckethead. I live in the constituency that Boris Johnson represented, Count B F stood and did get a few votes.

ALL HAIL COUNT BINFACE + LORD BUCKETHEAD! Buckethead was on Last Week Tonight when he first appeared, impressive stance and forbearing.

As well as count binface we also had the monster raving looney party. Also a mascot called H’Angus the monkey became mayor of Hartlepool.

A classic example of an American not understanding British humour. Also, you don't have to do much research to discover Count Binface is a comedian and writer. He begins to realise how good it would be to have someone like this to throw your protest vote at.

Electing a comedian to high office would not be particularly unusual. Some might argue we did with Boris Johnson but Ukraine definitely did it when they chose Volodymyr Zelenskyy as president.

This is a tradition - the PM’s constituency usually has crazy rival candidates like this. They don’t ever intend to win, just to highlight key issues. It all satire. Plus, it’s pretty hard to take yourself too seriously as a PM when you’re sharing a stage and shaking with someone in costume. Also, you get the chance to send a flyer via the Royal Mail, so it’s a great chance to highlight an issue. Every candidate in the country gets to send one for free to each of their prospective constituents, you just have to pay for the printing.

You can tell how completely fed up with our politics, the monster raving looney part ran in many elections.

There are OFCOM rules limiting the amount of air time you get as a politician for campaigning linked to how well you did in previous elections. I can't recall much coverage when binface first turned up but because he does shockingly well at the poles the BBC is required to give him air time if he requests it.

I love count binface he recently beat the candidate from the reform party ( bunch of racists misogynist) 2024 boy did he let them know what's up 😂

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="801">13:21</a> something I want to note - in elections, TV advertising is incredibly limited. Everyone is assigned a certain slot on BBC, and that's all they get. This does not limit talk shows or the such. But basically no advertising occurs for a party. Thus, canvassing is still very important here.

You know, if we had proportional representation, he would totally be in the commons

Its also a NON of the above type candidate .

Count Binface obviously isn't full of rubbish - unlike the vast majority of British politicians.....

All hail the Count!! I wish I lived in his constituency…

Voting for Count Binface is way for voters to vote and show that they disagree with the other candidates! Virtually the same as spoiling your voting card.

This guy is far more serious than you imagine from looking at his website.

The only problem of having candidates like this in the USA is that they may get elected. A member of the Monster Raving Loony Part did get elected in one election, an embarisment all round as he was desperately trying to loose. He turned out to be quite a good council member.

i am a proud count binface voter when he ran for mayor of london. 24,000 fellow voters also voted for him

somebody lost to a dolphin

You need to check out the monster raving loony party and screaking Lord sutch

The beauty of British politics any nutjob can have a go if they pay the deposit.

For somewhat of a tangent, Binface declares himself a massive fan of Lovejoy - which was an old UK TV series.. Lovejoy himself was portrayed by Ian Mcshane.. who's somewhat better known now as the Manager of the New York Continental in John Wick, and the voice of Tai Lung in Kung Fu Panda :P

Count binface always goes for the prime ministers seat in every election...

Some ideas of these fringe candidates make sense such as the 99p coin (think 99 cents in the US), that way something at £3.99 can be paid for without receiving back a piddling useless 1p! I hope Binface beats Sunak on the 4th of July.

He was also on Last Week Tonight back when he was Lord Buckethead

The thing with British 'joke' candidates is they often lace their ridiculous statements with very sensible and serious ideas. For example, in the 1960's the Monster Raving Loony Party campaigned for commercial radio stations to be legalised. They were laughed at by the establishment for being ridiculous. Within ten years that was the norm. In that vane, Count Binface (aka Lord Buckethead before the name change) actually has some serious policy suggestions that make perfect sense. And he also says some very savvy things regarding the state of politics in general - and is essentially all about making fun of a system that needs to be mocked relentlessly.

David Sutch was a 1960s pop star who inspired Alice Cooper He was very theatrical. His stage persona was Screaming Lord Sutch. He created the National Teenage Party as a joke for the 1966 General election. He kept it going for decades as what became the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. He liked to stand in the constituency of the prime minister or other prominent figure. On the ballot paper candidates have five words to identify themselves and Sutch used all five. He never won a seat but very often he didn’t come last. He might get 500 votes but some crank moral rearmament and religious parties might get 20. This is Britains way of telling politicians that we don’t value them too much.

He's pretty well known. Normally appears most elections.

Sometimes I watch 'American react' videos, to learn about my own culture. This is one of those videos.

he’s never heard of vermin supreme

Count Binface. Count Binface! Count Binface ! Today the UK, tomorrow the USA!

He has a podcast called "Trash Talk with Count Binface." Worth a listen.

In new Zealand we had the mc gilicutty serious party, I'd love if they brought that back

Yes, he's well known. A few years ago I lived in Uxbridge, Boris Johnson's constituency. When the scandals around Boris hit the news, Binface stood as a rival candidate for Uxbridge. I don't remember them now, but had some really good comedy slogans alluding to Boris and his scandals.

Political Satire but actually does a very important job, will highlight injustices within his manifesto and gets TV time that other candidates would dream of, it isnt about the votes its about the messege, i agree with him on the use of ceefax

He's called Count Binface and wears a bin o his head, and you want him to be serious? LOL

He beat out the Britain first guy! Tg

Count Binface, as Lord Buckethead (his former identity) appeared on John Oliver’s show once if you want an idea of profile. He also gets the occasional lighthearted interview in the radio If you want to understand him you just need to find his youtube channel where he outlines why he always runs. He believes in demonstrating the right of every uk citizen to run for office, no matter how ridiculous their getup or plans. He’s pretty consistent on this. His manifesto takes jabs at a few serious issues in a slightly absurd way - Thames water company bosses must take a swim in the Thames because of the amount of sewage they’ve been allowed to dump in the water. National service is mandatory military service, usually for young people, and it was a surprise policy of the Tories after the campaign started. An absurd idea and frankly disastrous in how it’d be implemented. The way UK politics works also means that he gets to stand on the stage with the other candidates as the result is read out, and take part in constituency (i.e. the local district he’s running to be representative of) debates. That’s why you’ll find clips of him speaking at political debates/panels. It’s a legal right of all candidates, and you can be a candidate with a few signatures and a deposit. And he beat the fascist candidates in the mayoral election And yeah we’ve always had candidates like this in the UK. The monster raving looney party, whose policies I believe once included immediately calling a re-election if they get elected, Mad Captain Tom, aka what happens if Tom Scott’s friends sign him up to national politics. We’ve had Elmo. We’ve had Count Binface (formerly Lord Buckethead) vs Lord Buckethead (the guy who claimed the copyright off him). Despite Lord Buckethead getting more votes he won the true victory by getting exactly 69 votes. Oh, and the Irish boarder he mentions? There’s no hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. This is a crucial part of the good friday agreement, utterly vital to stability in Northern Ireland after The Troubles. Brexit requires a hard boarder between the UK and EU. Ireland is still in the EU, Northern Ireland in the UK. The UK didn’t want to agree to a boarder within itself, between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. This issue ratcheted up cases of violence and protest. The fact that it was discussed during the referendum is an entirely fair point because it almost destroyed a very delicate situation that’s necessary for the UK to remain intact

Count Binface is very well known in the UK!! He was originally Lord Buckethead, but had to change his name because of Copyright infringement (the name came from a character from a low budget star wars rip-off in the early 1980's). As for voting in a joke candidate in to office in an election, it has actually happened over here. In the north east of England is a town called Hartlepool. The local's there are known as Monkey Hangers as there is a myth that during the Napoleonic wars in the early 19th Century, a monkey was washed up on the shore from a shipwreck, the locals thought it was a Frenchman and they publicly hung it. The town's Football club had a mascot known as H'Angus, which of course sounds like Hang Us and was a guy in a Monkey suit. Angus stood for election in the town for mayor....and Won!!!!

Here in the U.K. during an election if any candidate is interviewed or talked about they have to say who the other candidates are. Thus when the Mayoral Elections were on he was given a spot to introduce his policies. This was also based on the fact on how well he did last time.

Children In Need is a charity connected to the BBC (politically neutral, government funded broadcasting network). Pudsey is the mascot.

Matt Parker, famous mathematician and author (youtube channel stand up maths, features regularly on numberphile in the early days) made the most mathematically accurate statistics graphs for count binface's campaing leaflets

The challenger count bin-face I think is a comedic attempt to tell politicians either serve the people or (wind up in the bin)👀🤣

(I believe that) every candidate for mayor in the 2024 election was given one minute to put their case.

These have been going on for many years in the UK. Such as, Monster Raving Loony Party and Screaming Lord Sutch.

He is part of a long tradition in British politics . Every election Candidates from the Moster Raving Looney Party. As founded by Screaming Lord Sutch . . It both brightens boring elections and allows you to vote without endorsing the usual parties.

Count binface has a fantastic and quite serious utility in assessing the quality of other political candidates. When Count Binface gets popular and starts making waves you know the candidate of one or both parries are terrible. He seems silly but there is a cool function to him.