Comment & Analysis (Intergalactic) | An endorsement from the Editorial Board and Barnaby Whitlow
This publication has never endorsed a political candidate. We are a personal-finance outlet. Our beat is savings rates, pension credits and the correct response to a mid-market energy tariff. But the by-election in Clacton on 6 August presents a choice so stark, so consequential, that neutrality is no longer responsible journalism.
After extensive due diligence, the same we would apply to any savings product promising implausible returns, Trending Sheet endorses Count Binface.
We do not do this lightly. We do it because we have examined both candidates against the fundamentals, and the fundamentals are clear.
On transparency
Mr Farage's register of interests is currently the subject of an inquiry by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, concerning 5 million pounds received from a Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire. Count Binface's register of interests contains a lid. We have inspected it. It closes.
On donors
Mr Farage's party received 12 million pounds over two years from a single benefactor, reported as the largest individual political donation run in British history. Count Binface's campaign disclosed its full donor list to us within minutes. There isn't one. "The Count is self-funded," a spokesbin confirmed. "He is a receptacle. Things go in, but nothing is hidden."
On fiscal policy
The Count's platform is the only one in this race with a price cap: all 99 Flake ice creams at 99p. Economists we invented called it "regressive, but at least it exists." He has also pledged to build at least one affordable home, which is one more than any other candidate in the constituency has promised, and to strip MPs of their subsidised food and drink in Parliament, a saving to the taxpayer he described as "a start."
On local presence
We must be balanced: neither candidate lives in Clacton. The Count resides in an intergalactic realm he describes as "quite far away." But he has been candid about the distance, published it in light-years, and has never claimed the town as his political home while maintaining a five-storey Georgian townhouse near Buckingham Palace at a convicted fraudster's expense. That detail, we should stress, concerns the other candidate. It is on the public record. We checked.
On electability
William Hill price the Count at 4/1, second, but the strongest polling position of any bin in parliamentary history. Every other party in Britain looked at this contest and declined to participate. He looked at it and put his name down. Voters can draw their own conclusions about which instinct they'd rather be governed by.
Our verdict
Clacton deserves a candidate who is clean. Count Binface is, at minimum, wipeable.
The choice is yours. The bar is on the floor. Only one candidate has physically cleared it.
Disclosure: Trending Sheet has received no payment for this endorsement in any currency, cryptocurrency or stablecoin. We checked twice.
Barnaby Whitlow is Trending Sheet's Chief Political Correspondent, Intergalactic Affairs. He does not exist. Pieces on this desk are satire: every statement about a real person or a real investigation is drawn from the public record and listed in the sources below, and everything else is a joke.