Comment & Analysis (Intergalactic) | Barnaby Whitlow, Chief Political Correspondent, with the Economics Desk

This newspaper's economics desk has completed a line-by-line audit of Count Binface's election pledges, as restated for the Clacton by-election. We believe this is the first full audit of a candidate manifesto completed in Britain this parliament, a distinction that says less about our desk than about the other manifestos.

Methodology: each pledge was costed against public data, stress-tested for deliverability, and rated. We applied the same standards we would apply to any institution promising the electorate implausible returns.

Pledge-by-pledge findings

All 99 Flake ice creams capped at 99p. Cost: nil (price control). We stress-tested the wafer supply chain and consulted economists we invented, who described the policy as "regressive, but at least it exists." We note it is the only price cap proposed by any candidate in this race. Rating: DELIVERABLE.

Nationalise Adele. Cost to the Exchequer: zero pounds. She is already a national asset; this is a formality. Regulatory oversight would pass to a new body, Ofdele, with statutory powers to intervene should any album be withheld beyond a reasonable interval. Rating: DELIVERABLE, ARGUABLY OVERDUE.

Build at least one affordable home. Cost: modest. Deliverability: high. We note with regret that this pledge, if honoured, would exceed the current delivery baseline of several larger parties. Rating: AMBITIOUS BUT COSTED.

Bring back Ceefax. Capital expenditure: minimal. The infrastructure survives, we are assured, in a shed outside Leeds. Rating: DELIVERABLE.

A padlocked wooden shed in a Yorkshire field at golden hour, a faint blue cathode-ray glow visible in its window
The shed outside Leeds. The desk was not permitted inside, but confirms the glow. Photograph: Trending Sheet (Infrastructure Desk)

MPs to lose their subsidy for cheap food and drink in Parliament. This is the only revenue-raising measure proposed by any candidate in this contest. Our desk wishes to record that fact without further comment, and then to comment: extraordinary. Rating: DELIVERABLE, RESISTED BY THE AFFECTED.

People who use speakerphones on public transport to be conscripted. Enforcement costs: significant. Offset, in our assessment, by gains to national morale and troop numbers. Rating: POPULAR MANDATE LIKELY.

Move the hand dryer in the gents' toilet of the Crown & Treaty, Uxbridge, to a more sensible position. Capital cost: 48 pounds. We have located the socket. Rating: SHOVEL-READY.

Comparative note

Our desk attempted to extend this exercise to the other candidate in the contest. A full audit was not possible. We were, however, able to confirm from the public record that his party received 12 million pounds over two years from a single donor, and that a 5 million pound payment to the candidate personally is currently the subject of a parliamentary standards inquiry, which will reach its own findings. Our desk makes no judgment on matters before the Commissioner. We simply note that we completed the bin's audit in an afternoon.

Verdict

It is the opinion of this desk that Count Binface is entirely unqualified. His books, however, are clean, and in the present climate we know which of those two qualities is rarer.

We therefore issue the candidate an unqualified opinion, in both available senses.

Disclosure: the economists we invented were not paid for this audit. They do not exist, and have asked us to make clear that this puts them under no obligation to be wrong.

Barnaby Whitlow 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.