It is he, as the Clacton loser, who must answer questions about a £5m gift shortly before running for office. He who must explain why a convicted fraudster’s mother donated millions to Reform. He will face the grilling.

Frankly I can’t wait. After all the trouble he’s caused, the day when this metal miscreant is dragged away by police and forced to give straight answers – was the money a gift? Spent on security? Where are the receipts? – has been a long time coming.

And when, as I suspect, he cannot answer to the police’s satisfaction, I look forward to him facing the consequences. A recall election, his replacement by a younger, hungrier Binface, and prison. It is what he deserves.

To those who say ‘but it was you who received the £5 million’, allow me to introduce you to an English institution called democracy. One in which the people of Clacton, representing the whole UK, have just taken part.

They decided, resoundingly, that I am not guilty of any crime, misdemeanour or malfeasance. This jury of all that is good and true about Britain voted overwhelmingly to assign my so-called ‘crimes’ to Binface.

He knew that was the deal when he put himself up for election. Winner takes all. Loser takes the blame. Hope the metal hat’s still funny when you’re doing life inside.

And if I have fundamentally misunderstood the whole process, I shall hold another by-election and when I win my interpretation will be vindicated and made law. Because that is how elections work.

Reform voter Mary Fisher, 72, expressed her unhappiness in clear view of a dilapidated novelty golf course in which players hit the ball through a broken windmill and the mouth of a hideous plastic clown. 

She said: “It’s all joke candidates like Binface and ‘Nick the Incredible Flying Brick’. The only serious one is Nigel, who we all voted for even though he wouldn’t piss on Clacton if it was on fire. 

“They’re making us look like idiots with their silly policies about real ale and giving knighthoods to Wallace and Gromit. We need proper politicians like Reform who’ll spend literally all their time banning transgender flags.

“Clacton deserves better. We’re a popular UK holiday resort, if your idea of an excellent holiday is shovelling coins into slot machines, wandering around closed-down shops and stuffing your face with low-quality fish and chips.

“It was stupid of Nigel to trigger the by-election just to distract from his dodgy donations. He should realise we don’t care how corrupt he is so long as he hates poofs and darkies.”

Fellow resident Donna Sheridan said: “To be fair some of the joke candidates are quite funny. Like that one who does a parody of an obsessive transphobic wanker and pretends he was in Lewis.”

The pair have confirmed they have been quiet over recent weeks, despite supposedly facing off in a by-election campaign, because after bumping into one another while canvassing the attraction was immediate and mutual.

Farage said: “The moment I saw that cheeky-but-impassive metal face, so Teutonically expressionless, I knew I had to lick it.

“On paper, he’s everything I hate – liberal, establishment, BBC, not American – but in reality? I muttered something about meeting to discuss leafleting and within 24 hours we’d booked a room overlooking the promenade and were making passionate love.

“I don’t care about his policies. I don’t care about mine now I’ve got the £5 million. I only care about this gleaming, beautiful bin of a man and what he can give to the world.

“We’ve agreed no matter the result – I’m predicted to win but I hope it’s close – we’re in this together. He’ll be the constituency MP and I’ll carry on my vital duties fundraising and rabble-rousing. But in our hearts we’ll always be one.”

Binface said: “I think it’s because my head’s the same shape as a pint and he can put fags out on it.”

Roy Hobbs, HGV driver: “Where any true Brit goes: Prestatyn Pontin’s in 1978, under rain-lashed skies. That’s where Nigel Farage is, and he’s just won the Knobbly Knees contest.”

Lauren Hewitt, turflayer: “His wife’s French, so it seems likely he’s gone to France. Making him a double ponce.”

Tom Logan, tyre-puller: “Wherever it is, he’ll do Monday to Thursday there then he’ll spend Friday in its North.”

Margaret Gerving, retired influencer: “Obviously he’s on a round-Britain bus tour, or why would he have reduced fares by 33 per cent immediately prior? Think, sheeple.”

Helen Archer, osteopath: “Remember when Boris Johnson was apparently banging Carrie next to a baby in a two-person tent on a Scottish cliff? God, he could lie.”

Olly O’Connor, secret shopper: “We should be allowed a celebrity prime minister for two weeks while he’s gone. I nominate Lorraine.”

It’s bad for hard-working families

Burnham’s tax hurts hard-working families because it costs them money. It did cross my mind that they’d probably like to inherit their parents’ valuable houses, but the Sun had a badly photoshopped picture of Burnham looking devious in a graveyard. That’s good enough for me.

A lot of rich people don’t pay tax anyway

The Sun is so right to point this out. Lots of rich people avoid paying tax by offshoring their cash or other ploys, and Burnham can’t touch their money. So by wanting to tax them, Burnham is to blame for their selfish tax-dodging, and we shouldn’t do anything about it. You can’t fault that logic.

It’s good to hope your parents die

I’ll admit the current system is random and unfair when it comes to which families have to pay the full cost of old-age care. But I think it’s good to be made to hope your parents die sooner rather than later, rather than hanging on without much quality of life in a pricey care home. Out with the old, in with the new, as I say to Gran when we’re visiting Grandad’s grave.

Skivers will support Burnham’s tax

Skivers, which is people on benefits, will obviously support an estate tax because they’re skint and have nothing to lose. I agree with dividing people into skivers and strivers, because I’ve got a job. The fact that I’m a lazy f**k who slacks off at every opportunity doesn’t come into it.

We’d be f**ked without rich people

If we slightly increase tax on rich people they’ll all leave and Britain will be stuffed. That’s not just my opinion – it’s what every media outlet owned by rich people says. Where would we be without entrepreneurs who make money in the most obvious ways possible like buying properties and selling them at a profit or charging extortionate rents? You wouldn’t have a landlord to text to get your dangerous boiler fixed for a start!

Giving away money is worse for billionaires

If a billionaire has to give up a small part of their income it’s worse than for normal people. They’ve got higher overheads, like public schools and expensive flats in London for their kids. We’re actually lucky not to have their stressful lifestyle. Imagine how much a yacht costs. It would bloody bankrupt me!

Burnham’s a loony leftie

Burnham’s just a nutter, with his pie-in-the-sky socialist daydreams which other countries manage to achieve without much fuss. Thank God we’ve got newspapers like The Sun to put us right. Next he’ll be saying medical treatment should be free at the point-of-use. How the bloody hell would that work?

Making Union Jacks acceptable

Burnham should be more like Starmer and tell us we shouldn’t be ashamed of loving the Union Jack, even though no one is. We need to know it’s fine to wrap your flag around a couple of pillows and put your penis in it. Burnham should announce this on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, with a full demonstration.

Banning Kneecap 

Does Burnham not realise Kneecap are still out there with their anti-genocide views, albeit dumbly expressed by shouting support for Hamas? He needs to pretend he might ban them or put them in prison, which obviously he can’t because it would be fascist, impossible and mental. And don’t forget Bob Vylan, although everyone else has.

Smoking and vaping

If there one thing that will make Britain great again, it’s hassling a shrinking minority of diehard smokers and also vapers, whose habit isn’t risk-free but apparently isn’t that deadly either. F**k’s sake, Andy, get your priorities right.

Making a twat of yourself

Burnham could learn from Rishi Sunak, who did a memorable photo-op to prove he was normal. He managed to mess it up and look even more out-of-touch by not knowing how to use a contact payment card, but it’s what a PM should be doing. Get yourself down to Asda and make your PA do a big shop for you, Andy, then try to pay with gold bullion.

Copying Reform 

Cancel intelligence briefings and trips to the G7 so you can spend literally all your time monitoring Nigel Farage. If he thinks of a policy racists approve of you need to be ready to copy him, because voters want a diluted, unconvincing version of what someone else is offering. Andy, why not have Cisgender Pride Month ready to go?

Free gifts 

Boris Johnson received endless free holidays, wallpaper and God knows what. Starmer had his Taylor Swift tickets and – admirably frugally – got Lord Alli to pay for his glasses. Voters like to know a PM is working hard either going to gigs or dealing with the resultant controversies when the only freebies they get in the course of their job are a Christmas party and some nasty tuna sandwiches in a meeting.

Being working-class

Any PM must establish their working-class credentials, as Starmer did so brilliantly with his gripping tales of his father the toolmaker that were only partly bullshit. Burnham is already from a Northern working-class background, but he should try to increase his working-classness, perhaps by claiming he is the result of a coal miner impregnating a pie.

There will be only war 

It’s surprising coming from a moderate Labour type like myself, but Warhammer has convinced me we should live in a state of perpetual war. Obviously you haven’t voted for me or endless conflict and death, but that’s just how British politics works, so tough.

Everything will be decided by dice

From now on, all activities and life events, from eating a meal to having a girlfriend or going to university, will be decided by rolling dice like in Warhammer. It will be mental and yet strangely fair. Just be sure you have a d6 with you and roll a 3 or above if you’re in an accident and need to go to hospital.

Everyone will become a highly stylised soldier

Obviously there are the famous Warhammer Space Marines, but there are other factions like a futuristic Wehrmacht and fanatical combat nuns. None of it makes much sense, but it’s a great opportunity for all the people who won’t shut up about National Service to join up and die. Your conscription papers are in the post, gammons and Daily Telegraph columnists!

Parliament to be replaced with the Imperium of Man 

For those unfamiliar with Warhammer lore, the Imperium is a brutal regime constantly at war with alien and supernatural beings like Necrons and Beasts of Nurgle. The Imperium is deeply fascist and viciously xenophobic, so we won’t be needing Reform UK anymore.

You might meet Henry Cavill

Superman actor Henry Cavill is a huge fan of Warhammer 40k and has been pushing for a film series based on the game. Once he realises we’re doing it for real he’s sure to sign up for inevitable death or the chance to be entombed forever inside a battle mech.

Try to avoid becoming a ‘servitor’

The Daily Mail has been predicting I will inflict left-wing economic misery on the UK, but they couldn’t have guessed I was actually planning to turn many taxpayers into hideously mutilated lobotomised cyborg slaves who know only drudgery and suffering. That will teach them to engage in scaremongering.

Everything will be ‘grimdark’

In the ‘grimdark’ fiction of Warhammer everything is as relentlessly horrible as possible. So when your loved ones die from war, overwork or pollution, they’ll be recycled as food. I’ve already had interest from Happy Shopper. You can forget about sex too, which is largely absent from the Warhammer universe. What did you expect from a world created by tabletop gaming nerds?

REMEMBER June 2024? When Britain was a paradise? When taxes were low, public services thriving, the armed forces roaring with power?

Back then, there was no deficit. Britain wasn’t in a penny of debt. NHS waiting lists were so low patients were getting hip replacements they neither needed nor requested. The ratio of police to public was roughly three to one, the same as teachers to pupils.

Our prisons were so empty their inmates’ chief problem was loneliness and the boats had been stopped, apart from fishermen bringing home record post-Brexit catches.

Then what happened? A catastrophic administrative error by the electorate ended in an accidental Labour landslide. And Starmergeddon.

Since 2024? Immigrants. Riots. Problems with Thames Water. A cost-of-living crisis such as the world has never seen. Jeremy Clarkson battling cancer.

A country hopelessly, desperately in hock to foreign powers. Prisons overflowing. Policemen as rarely seen as the Scottish capercaillie. School forced to close their doors, leaving children on the streets for the next six weeks.

Seven in ten farmers committing suicide. The NHS constructing nine-mile long corridors simply to treat patients in. Net Zero causing unprecedented heatwaves. The chance to join a exciting and popular war in Iran inexplicably missed.

Make no mistake, this is all Starmer’s doing. As he steps down, his legacy of hating landlords, business, pubs and Brexit is secure. He leaves behind him a country broken.

Forget Burnham. There is only one escape. At the next general election, which is surely soon in the name of common decency, we must all vote Conservative. Or Reform. Or Restore. Or any combination of the three. Whoever’s furthest right.

Labour leader. As if that’s something to be proud of. As if it’s not a badge of shame to wear for the next 72 hours before I become prime minister.

Maybe in 2010 it would have meant something to be Labour leader, but you gave it to Ed Miliband. Great f**king idea that was. Or in 2015, when the party chose Jeremy Corbyn instead. Only cost us two elections and Brexit, that one. Brilliant move.

Honestly, at that point I was done. Better buggering off to Manchester than hanging around with Jezza and his Marxism Today marrow-humpers. I wasn’t initially going to become mayor but 20 failed job interviews convinced me I wasn’t qualified for anything else.

Now, improbably, one more f**k-up of a Labour leader later, I’m the party’s new darling. Elected leader unopposed. About bloody time, but parliamentary procedure means I’m leader today but don’t get the big job until Monday.

So how does it feel to lead the Labour party after all these years? A ballache, mate. An appointment made for administrative reasons. A shitload of pointless paperwork.

I’m giving a speech later like it’s a milestone, but it’s not the big speech, is it? That’s Monday on Downing Street. Might even wear a tie for that one. This one is, like the job I’m getting today, unnecessary busywork.

So when you see headlines saying ‘Burnham made Labour leader’ and think ‘so what?’ I’m right there with you. Still, means it’s not on me when England lose tomorrow.

The card, which says ‘Happy Birthday’ in big letters on the front and still has the price sticker on it, brought Keir Starmer close to tears thanks to the cold, empty platitudes it contains.

He said: “This is so heartwarming. It’s always hard to know if your co-workers like you when you’re the boss, but these vague well-wishes are proof I’ll be missed.

“Look how they’ve written their goodbyes really small and in the corners. They probably wanted to leave room for the hundreds of Labour MPs yet to sign the card. Although a lot were too busy, which is fair enough.

“I’m sure they wanted to write longer, more personal messages, but nobody likes it when someone hogs the pen. That also explains why they didn’t leave their names. The mad jostle to write in the card must have been crazy!”

Former deputy PM Angela Rayner said: “Yes, I doubt anyone was itching to write ‘Well you f**ked that, didn’t you?’ or ‘Good riddance, you total charisma vacuum who’s somehow managed to be hated by literally everyone’. 

“As I was thinking what to write the words ‘Thank God that’s over’ kept going through my mind. But in the end I just went with ‘Great working with you’.”

After watching Binface’s fiery exchange with interviewers on Newsnight, whip-smart Clacton resident Margaret Gerving has come to the conclusion that his ‘independent space warrior’ persona might be nothing more than a satirical gimmick.

Gerving said: “At first I took him at face value. Why shouldn’t I believe he’s the 5,900-year-old leader of the Recyclons? Curious, I dug a little deeper.

“Alarm bells started ringing when I looked into his policies. Putting a 99p price cap on Flakes and sending £1 trillion a week to the NHS sounds appealing, but he doesn’t explain how he’ll fund either of them.

“Then I remembered that bins are traditionally found on the street and used to contain rubbish, not worn on the heads of intergalactic visitors with an interest in local politics. And according to Wikipedia his real name is Jonathan Harvey. The lies never end.

“I know I’m going to sound like a tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist when I say this, but I really think Count Binface might just be some bloke having a laugh. And fair play, he nearly had me for a minute there.”

She added: “It’s a shame Lord Buckethead isn’t running. Now there was a candidate you could trust.”

The Rejoin EU Party

A party hampered only by everyone being sick to death of Brexit and unable to face Brexiters moaning like bastards if we rejoin officially. Should easily pick up plenty of votes from the bigoted pensioners of Clacton in the Remain stronghold of Essex.

Laurence Fox, Reclaim Party

One of the movers and shakers of British politics thanks to sitting at home posting toxically about trans people on X and filming the chickens in his garden. Could Clacton be the pivotal moment that leads to a Reclaim government? No. But it’s great that he’s standing; putting community activities on your CV can help you get a job when you’re long-term unemployed.

Protect British Wildlife 

A hugely popular movement, insofar as everyone likes hedgehogs. They’ve not actually said they’ll stand as yet, but it would be a gripping grudge match after they clashed with Binface in the Makerfield by-election. Let’s hope there’s trash-talk and tempers flare so we’re treated to the sight of the Count nutting a fox with his big metal bin head.

Stop 5G Mind Control

Conspiracy theorists often see elections as a platform to expose the truth. Will Clacton be the one in which the sheeple finally realise 5G phone masts are psy-op weapons used by the New World Order to cover up vaccines and chemtrails making us sterile? It could be – if democracy wasn’t all rigged by Bill Gates and Davos.

The Official Monster Raving Loony Party

A worthy opponent for Binface. He has joke policies like a 99p price cap on 99 Flakes, they have joke policies like selling socks in packs of three in case you lose one. He dresses as a bin, they dress like Rag Week for the over-60s. It won’t be easy for Binface to take on the joke candidate political establishment though – expect them to deploy their highly professional electoral machine, ie. three ageing CAMRA members.

The Lord Druid Simon of Avalon and Avebury 

British elections frequently feature some odd chap steeped in paganism or Arthurian legend or both. One such individual could prove a powerful electoral force if – as is written in prophecy – King Arthur’s knights rise from their slumber in Britain’s hour of need and slay all the other candidates. Although he’d probably just get them to post some badly designed leaflets.

I will be judged by the British public, or rather the 96.1 per cent white, 64 per cent below the poverty line, 30 per cent aged over 65 demographic of Clacton. And frankly I like those odds.

Yes, I was an unassailable 8,000 votes ahead of the runner-up at the last election, but anything could happen. Especially as I am standing with no opponents which only makes my valour more stark.

I have been forced to act by the liberal establishment, who have been mercilessly persecuting me by saying I have to declare donations in accordance with ‘the rules’. Are other MPs subjected to this sort of cruel and vindictive witch hunt? No. Don’t Google that.

The truth is I never see a penny of donations because it is all spent immediately on personal security. Sadly my quest to free Britain from the EU has made me many enemies. Can you imagine what it’s like living in fear of Led By Donkeys mocking you?

But perhaps the worst aspect of the whole thing is that it’s over a silly little £5 million donation from a cryptocurrency billionaire. Not a bribe but simply a gift for my tireless Brexit campaigning given to me a decade after the event, as gifts often are.

So I’m fighting back. After this election, when an interviewer asks me about donations I will simply shout: ‘THE LIBERAL ESTABLISHMENT WON’T ACCEPT MY MANDATE FROM THE BRITISH PEOPLE!’ Perhaps as many as 20 times in one interview.

I know the good people of Clacton-on-Sea will not be told what to do by the establishment and will re-elect me without hesitation. All I can say to those fair-minded patriots is thank you, and have you considered investing in gold and crypto?

The Reform leader has quit his position to fight a ‘people vs the establishment’ by-election, and said if anyone has an address for the people of Clacton he would be grateful for the chance to reconnect.

He continued: “Or my own address, come to that. I know I’ve got a place there somewhere but it’s got a bit lost in the old portfolio.

“I haven’t been able to hold a constituency surgery there for the last two years for security reasons. I was given £5m which I’m claiming I’m spending on security? Yeah, but that wouldn’t be enough for Clacton. It’s dog-rough.

“Anyway yes, looking forward to touching base with the residents, shaking hands, drinking pints in pubs, telling their daytime drinkers I could be earning real big money in the United States which I’m sure they’ll be able to empathise with.

“It’s by the sea, isn’t it? Hopefully we’ll be able to see some of those small boats I talk so much about. We definitely won’t see any of my crypto billionaire pals I don’t like to talk about, they wouldn’t be seen dead in the place.”

Clacton resident Wayne Hayes said: “Brilliant bloke, Farage. Saviour of this country. Next prime minister. Will I vote? Nah, I don’t bother with by-elections.”