Count Binface, Nigel Farage's space-warrior foe

https://www.economist.com/the-world-in-brief/2026/07/11/b240d63f-2768-43dd-89b6-2bdceb6df745

by tagawa • 12 days ago

70 31 12 days ago

economist.com

alwa• 12 days ago

https://archive.is/iOP0s

earth-tattoo2• 12 days ago

Why is this on the front page of hacker news?

alex_anglin• 12 days ago

Such is the state of British politics?

BLKNSLVR• 12 days ago

Such is the state of politics worldwide?

xtracto• 12 days ago

Have you seen the clown they elected in the US? Also, ive heard in Ukraine they elected a comedian as president.

amiga386• 12 days ago

As the Count might say himself: why not?

- interview on BBC Morning Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAXT5xf9ot4

- interview on The Today Programme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGOmzQbRT_E

- interview with Andrew Marr on LBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRBh7uGwxmU

tempestn2• 12 days ago

Same reason as always. Someone found it interesting and submitted it. Others found it interesting and up voted it within a period of time.

earth-tattoo2• 12 days ago

I'm amused that hacker news crowd finds this front page worthy.

tagawa• 12 days ago

I just submit things I find interesting and occasionally other people find it interesting too. Usually opposite to what I expected.

khurs• 12 days ago

Did you not read the article? They are re-writing Count Binface in Rust.

tim-tday• 12 days ago

:facepalm:

Waterluvian• 12 days ago

I dunno if Hacker News encompasses hacker culture, but I’d say novelty candidates are absolutely hacker culture.

ggm2• 12 days ago

Because the mainstream parties have refused to stand candidates in opposition to Farage, stating "it's a stunt" there is some feeling Binface will not only get his deposit back, if the protest vote is strong enough...

Farage is very popular in Clacton. It's an older, reactionary community but british elections are First-Past-The-Post and normally have a low turn out so if enough old people died after the last election and enough younger people come out to vote, it is possible although I personally think unlikely, Binface will win.

Regrettably, for purists, and those who want Binface to win, other novelty candidates are now standing. The man dressed as a fox, and the monster raving loony party. Both appear to be somewhat petulant, MRLP is unhappy Binface has taken their spot in novelty candidature, and there are rumours MRLP and Mr Fox are being funded by right wing parties opposed to Farage. British Politics are very strange.

If the UK had proportional/transferrable votes, these alternate candidates would ultimately send votes to Binface in all likelihood. But, thats not how it works in British Parliamentary elections and by-elections. Forms of complex vote are used for the regional devolved parliaments in Wales and Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Andy Burnham (the future Labour prime minister from Manchester replacing Sir Keir Starmer) has previously indicated support for ending FPTP but people often say this before achieving power, and then fail to make it happen in power. Should he carry out another proposed idea of "a Parliament for England" based in the north, then it is likely as for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland it would not use FPTP.

jmspring• 12 days ago

Because the world has hacks outside of tech and a life outside tech. Most of the interesting articles on HN are things like today's lost city in egypt, not oh look lols my llm performs well.

tim333• 12 days ago

It would be very funny if Binface wins. I'd certainly vote for him as I find Farage annoying and in a national poll there were more people for Binface than Farage. Dunno about in Clacton though.

pseudohadamard• 11 days ago

Binface certainly has a great platform to run on: "I'm not Nigel Farage".

Count Binface, Nigel Farage's space-warrior foe

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