Let’s give Binface his five minutes on prime time television - Vladimir McTavish

It’s a shame Count Binface doesn’t get the chance to do even one party election broadcast, says Vladimir McTavish

Up against all of this, the party political broadcasts seem like a quaint throwback to the 1970s, like re-runs of Open University or repeats of Porridge.

I wonder how many people actually watch them. More importantly, do any of the people watching actually pay any attention? Most crucially, however, have they ever been known to sway the mind of the floating voter?

I assume one has to be fielding some minimum number of candidates to be granted a broadcast, because I have yet to see one from Count Binface.

These broadcasts can be a distinctly underwhelming watch. But an all-time low was reached last week. On Tuesday night, I saw a broadcast from Reform UK, which contained no film and no sound. It featured only a black screen, onto which were projected the words “Britain is broken. Britain needs Reform”. For five whole minutes.

It mentioned no policies. It didn’t explain how Britain had got broken in the first place, although everyone knows it was Nigel Farage that broke it. Apparently, he’s now the man to fix it.

My first impulse was not that Britain was broken, but that my telly was broken. Five endless minutes with no sound and no moving images, just a static slogan. It’s what I imagine TV to be like in North Korea.

There wasn’t even any sign of Nigel Farage. Which was a good thing because my daughter was sitting beside me, drinking a milkshake. While I’m very much a fan of people throwing sticky drinks at bigots, I’m not quite so enthusiastic if I’m the person who has to clean up the mess.

The most disappointing thing about this whole election has been the lack of stuff thrown at Nigel Farage. All we’ve had so far is one milkshake and a handful of rocks. Come on, Britain, there’s still another 12 days to find something else to chuck at him.

The random missiles lobbed at Nigel Farage are a good reflection of the cost of living crisis. A few years back, it was a milkshake from Five Guys that hit him in Newcastle. This year in Clacton, they could only afford a milkshake from McDonalds. Most recently, in Barnsley, it was rocks from a building site. That’s how hard up we’ve become. Also, Yorkshire folk tend to be careful with their money.

Of course, here in Scotland we don’t bother throwing stuff at him. We just chase him down the street until he hides in a pub. Which is what happened a few years back. How out-of-touch is the guy? Hiding from Scottish people in a pub?

It’s a shame Count Binface doesn’t get the chance to do even one party election broadcast. He launched his manifesto this week, and it contains a surprising number of common-sense policies. These include forcing ex-Prime Ministers to do National Service, and making politicians swim in the UK’s rivers.

Give Binface his five minutes on prime time TV. I guarantee nobody would switch off and quite a few could even switch vote.