Count Binface has some advice for Nigel Farage if he loses in Clacton

Count Binface has suggested Nigel Farage should spend his “£5 million unconditional gift” on a Ferrari if he suffers a shock defeat in the Clacton-on-Sea by-election.

Speaking to The Independent’s In The Room podcast ahead of Thursday’s vote, the satirical candidate offered some financial advice to his Reform UK rival should things not go to plan at the ballot box.

But Count Binface joked that Farage, who has styled himself as an anti-establishment figure, may struggle to bring himself to visit a Ferrari showroom.

“He’s so anti-establishment,” he joked.

Count Binface was subjected to similarly rigorous scrutiny over his own economic programme, including one of the headline pledges in his manifesto: a 99p price cap on 99 Flake ice creams.

Pressed by former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara on how a Binface administration would fund the policy, he ruled out a stealth tax on toppings – but stopped short of embracing wider price controls.

“If I started price capping every commodity, people would think I’m out of my mind and that this is some kind of gimmick,” he said.

Count Binface conceded that his chances of becoming Clacton’s next MP remain “unlikely”, despite polling suggesting around one in five voters in the constituency plan to back him.

His manifesto also includes pledges to refuse “£5 million gifts from crypto billionaires” and to build at least one affordable home – a deliberately modest target compared with successive governments’ housebuilding promises.

Count Binface is also an avid supporter of homelessness charity Shelter, which estimates that 90,000 social homes need to be built every year for the next decade.

The government has itself struggled to keep pace with its pledge to build 1.5 million homes between 2024 and 2029, with fewer than 300,000 built in its first two years.

Count Binface said homelessness was an issue particularly close to his “central fluid-pumping organ”.

“Every single government has a housing target, and they steadfastly fail to meet them,” he said.

“It’s about time one politician underpromised and overdelivered.”

His solution to Britain’s housing crisis begins with making better use of the property already available – including the royal palaces.

“It’s one family. They can have one palace. The rest of them can be turned into shelters,” he said.

“What a symbol it would be to the world if they gave up Buckingham Palace. They don’t even like it. They hate it, Helen.”

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