Count Binface Makerfield manifesto would stitch up Burnham

Count Binface is among the candidates for the Makerfield by-election. So voters will have at least one coherent manifesto to ponder.

UK politics has a long and rich tradition of electoral candidates who apparently exist in a different universe from everyone else. It’s how we ended up with Boris Johnson and Liz Truss as successive PMs.

But aside from the utter deadbeats standing for allegedly serious parties, there’s the novelty candidate. The Official Monster Raving Loony Party pretty much wrote the book on this sort of thing. And its leader, Alan ‘Howlin’ Laud Hope, will be lining up alongside 13 others of varying seriousness in Makerfield.

There’s a perception that the Loonies are no more than the Standing at the Back Dressed Stupidly and Looking Stupid Party of Blackadder the Third fame. However, the party has a decent track record of seeing manifesto policies become reality.

Crucially, the Loonies’ precursor, the National Teenage Party, ran on a platform of reducing the voting age from 21 to 18.

Count Binface is a worthy torchbearer for such political satire in the 21st century. A Jägerbomb to the Loonies’ real ale, if you will. So it’s worth checking his manifesto to see the actual good stuff in amongst the frivolities. I mean, sorting out footy corners is surely pie-in-the-sky.

It’s fair to say Andy Burnham might not be a fan of point 10.

The Count Binface manifesto — Makerfield Great Again

1. I will cut your taxes, and raise everyone else’s.
2. All 99 Flake ice-creams to cost no more than 99p and Wigan Kebabs to be price-capped at £2.
3. Rephase the traffic lights on Liverpool Road to ease congestion.
4. Corners to be refereed properly in football.
5. People who use speakerphones on public transport to be conscripted.
6. Wifi on trains that works. Also trains that work.
7. The £6.6m Ashton-in-Makerfield regeneration scheme to be regenerated.
8. Pensions to be double-locked, with an extra little chain on the side.
9. Cyclists who break the highway code to be forced to ride unicycles instead.
10. Elected mayors to be ineligible for parliament until after their term of office.
11. Free parking at the Gerard Centre to be increased to 3 hours.
12. Auto-renew on all online subscriptions to be abolished immediately.
13. HS2 to be renamed FFS1 and rerouted so it ploughs through rail execs’ homes.
14. Galloway Bakers’ ‘Full Monty Bin Lid’ breakfast to be Britain’s new national dish.
15. Tries in Rugby League to be increased from 4 to 5 points in line with inflation.
16. Ceefax to be brought back for the entire Greater Manchester area.
17. MPs to lose their subsidy for cheap food and drink in parliament.
18. The hand-dryer in the gents’ toilet at the Crown & Treaty pub, Uxbridge to be moved to a more sensible position.
19. Count Binface to be the UK’s entrant at Eurovision 2027.
20. I stand by my past manifestos: croissants, Brexit, Trident, building at least one affordable house: I’ve got it all covered.

Featured image via the Canary (Binface by Leon Neal / Getty Images, Burnham by Christopher Furlong / Getty Images)