UK Column News — 14th August 2026

**Mike Robinson** (0:08)
Good afternoon, it's Friday the 14th of August, 2026, just after one o'clock. Welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson, and joining me by video link today is Basil Valentine. Now later in the program, we're going to be reporting on the funding of two cabinet ministers will be asking, what is the Defense University Alliance? And we're going to be also looking at what's going on on the USS Abraham Lincoln. But we're of course going to begin today with the Clacton by-election. Because as everybody will know, Nigel Farage has won the Clacton by-election. This was supposed to give him a resounding endorsement in the face of corruption allegations, centered on the 5 million pound donation by a crypto billionaire. But in the end, Farage, as we see on screen there, if we just bring that back up, received 22,239 votes. That's 63.34% of the vote. And his main opponent, Count Binface, received 9,455 votes, which was 26.93% of the vote. Now to put that in a bit of perspective, David Davis, when he pulled the same stunt, received well over 80% of the vote. So we're going to ask some questions about that. Now, Farage did not attend the count, and that perhaps is hardly surprising because the entire exercise had really no credibility whatsoever. And that makes it even more strange that he felt the need to justify his non-attendance in some way. And how did he do that? Well, he will never let an opportunity go to waste, as they say, because at a speech to reform party members, he said, I'm sad to say that after 33 years of being a candidate in active politics, I've been advised tonight by Essex Police that there's an organized campaign to disrupt and degrade the result. That narrative was reinforced by a reform party spokesperson who claimed the warning involved a credible threat.
That was also repeated by Richard Tice on various media appearances this morning. Essex Police aren't saying that at all. They said that no one had been advised not to attend the count. They said that they would have provided any protection that was required in any case.
But actually something else that Farage said at his speech to the reform party members gives a slightly different picture because he went on to say, I'm damned if I'm going to stand on a stage having won a resounding victory, a ringing endorsement of all that I've tried to fight for and all you've tried to fight for referring to the reform supporters there and be demeaned and humiliated by nobodies. This seems internally contradictory. If the people there were nobodies, then how would he be demeaned and humiliated? But anyway, that was his position. So was it a case that he had received some kind of death threat or some kind of threat to his person? Or was it that in fact, he just was embarrassed to be standing there amongst people that he considered to be nobodies? So the question then, Basil, is what has been achieved? Now, I would suggest absolutely nothing. He's going to join all the other children in the House of Commons after the school holidays in September. And he's going to face continued scrutiny over his financial affairs. The problem is not going to go away. And in fact, the parliamentary investigation has already restarted.
And so his claims of personal jeopardy aren't going to save him. But I mean, what are your thoughts on the results?
And in fact, did you have any money on it?

**Basil Valentine** (3:48)
Well, I saw lots of online content creators over the last 48 hours in the run up to the vote itself saying that support for Farage was cratering and that Binface actually stood a very good chance of winning the seat. So I invested precisely 30 shillings of my hard-earned money at around 45 to 1 on Binface actually putting off the result. It was more a just in case bit, because if you see something around 45 to 1, there's an old adage in punting, never be afraid of having a few bob on something at a big price. So I thought, such as people's distrust burging on dislike of the whole body politic these days. And Farage now, you know, in amongst the characters that he himself had demeaned for so long, facing effectively corruption charges in the House of Commons. He's no longer the outsider, he's now very much an insider when it comes to Westminster.
He's not an insider when it comes to Clacton anything, but in fact, Binface came up with a couple of rather clever and novel ideas for his manifesto, saying that he promised to spend more time in Clacton than in Washington, DC. It's not something that Farage could boast. And that also he promised not to take any bungs from crypto billionaires. So with a sensible platform like that, based firmly on satire, I thought Binface stood a slightly better than 45 to one chance of winning, hence my small wager. As for Farage, well, he shot himself in the foot rather. There are mumblings that his tenure as leader of reform may be coming to an end. Has he lost his touch? This wasn't so much a political theater in Clacton as a black farce, albeit a rather amusing one to entertain the residents of the Seaside Resort at the height of summer, with all these different fringe candidates running around. Notably, Lawrence Fox, who ran a semi-serious campaign for his reclaimed party, polled no more than 1% of the vote. So that isn't going anywhere.