The first thing Prime Minister Binface did upon taking power was ban all references to “Lord Buckethead”.
This eccentric and obscure piece of legislation should have been telling. Lord Buckethead was a character created by the American filmmaker Todd Durham for his 1984 film Hyperspace, and it became a perennial candidate in British elections. The comedian Jon Harvey was the latest Lord Buckethead, in 2017, when Durham asserted his ownership over the character. Thus, Harvey was forced to create something new. Something original. Something different. So, he had the genius idea to change “Lord” to “Count” and “Buckethead” to “Binface”.
You either have that kind of creativity or you don’t.
Join Britain’s most civilised publication.
Challenge the consensus. Access rigorous analysis.
Banning references to Buckethead should have been a sign of the paranoid authoritarianism that was to come. Alas, people were too busy chuckling to really notice.
It all started in Clacton. Nigel Farage announced a by-election in what reasonable observers acknowledged was an attempt to change the narrative from various accusations of financial opacity. Candidates from the traditional parties deciding not to stand against Farage was morally dubious but politically astute. Farage won but voters were confused and amused by the spectacle. “Why not vote for a bin when politics is so rubbish,” many said.
When Prime Minister Andy Burnham flopped — turning out to be just as incompetent from Manchester as Keir Starmer had been from London — the next prime minister, Wes Streeting, called a general election. Unfortunately, Streeting had made a fatal mistake — he had forgotten that he was fantastically unlikeable.
Streeting had about as much chance as a rat at the CFA International Cat Show. But enthusiasm for the other candidates was lacking too. Farage, who had always been a divisive candidate, had been worn down by various controversies. The public had not forgotten fourteen years of Conservative incompetence. Zack Polanski had never quite succeeded in turning the word “hope” into a political program. Ed Davey had spent eight years falling into various bodies of water for no apparent reason. The nationalist party Revive had been launched in 2026, promising to speak for the “silent majority” that wanted ethnic cleansing and Catholic nationalism, and would go on to attract a plucky 0.001 per cent of the vote.
Cometh the hour, cometh the … bin? The campaign of the Count Binface Party began as a joke, obviously, under the slogan: “In a world full of rubbish … why not vote for a bin?” As the campaigns of the other candidates began to fail, though, Count Binface took on a surprising seriousness. His campaign adverts were slick and seemingly ubiquitous. His words acquired a strange note of paternalistic authority. “I may be silly,” said Count Binface, “But what’s really silly is people like Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch pretending to have the answers to your problems.” Critics from Reform UK and the Conservatives complained that Count Binface never seemed to attack the Labour Party, though other commentators justifiably pointed out that no one really had to attack Wes Streeting.
For all that his persuasive powers had been diminished, Farage was still on course to win the election. The British cordon sanitaire that was erected against him hit upon a masterstroke: rather than attempting to prop up a candidate like Streeting or Polanski, Labour, the Greens, the Lib Dems and the SNP put forward Count Binface. “Humans have failed,” Binface said, as he attempted to explain how the satirical anti-establishment candidate had ended up leading the coalition, “And they recognise that now. It’s time an independent space warrior had a chance.”
“What could be more bonkers and brilliant,” wrote Camilla Lovely-Sprewitt in the Telegraph, “What could be more British?” Binface won after a historically low turnout.
“It’s time to be serious,” said Prime Minister Binface in his first address to the nation, “And when I say serious, I mean seriously silly.” He made Gareth Southgate his deputy prime minister, Martin Lewis his chancellor and John “the Boshfather” Fisher his home secretary. With his inexperienced government, he gave greater powers to the civil service and pumped funding into various NGOs. “I may be silly,” said Prime Minister Binface, “But unlike other leaders I could name, I’m not so silly as to interfere with the experts.”
“I may look like a bit of a clown,” Binface told Britain, “But the real clowns are the people who have been trying to divide you — the people who have told you that Britain is a dangerous and depressing place, and not a rich, vibrant, gloriously eccentric nation.” Binface introduced the SMILE Act — Securing Media Integrity and Limiting Extremism. It gave Ofcom sweeping powers, limited access to social media, extended hate speech legislation, and introduced new laws to prohibit what it called “disinformation”. Britons were warned to be “nice” and to be “sensible” in adverts encouraging them to, “Give us a SMILE!”
Soon, Binface was introducing a raft of new policies: implementing a mandatory “silly hat” day in Parliament, changing the national anthem to a grime remix, and empowering the police to break up organisations considered “divisive” or “hateful”. Posters went up saying “Bin Brother Is Watching You”, which seemed like a silly joke as long as you weren’t aware that extended surveillance powers meant that in a broad sense he actually was.
Prime Minister Binface announced a state of emergency on the public teletext information service, Ceefax
Despite Britain rejoining the European Union, economic conditions remained bleak. There were blackouts in the winter of 2028. The UK was powerless when it came to the Latvia Crisis in March 2029. Prime Minister Binface launched a campaign to convince the public to “Keep Calm and Carry On Being Silly”.
That year, the Leader of the Opposition was arrested for “disinformation”. Prime Minister Binface announced a state of emergency on the public teletext information service, Ceefax.
Enjoying The Critic online? It's even better in print
Subscribe today to Britain's most civilised magazine
Subscribe
