Count Binface (AFP via Getty Images)
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)The joke candidate Count Binface ran the most cost-effective London mayoral campaign, it can be revealed.
An analysis of the 2021 poll results showed that Binface — real name Jon Harvey — got the highest proportion of votes relative to the amount he spent entering the race — an average of 40p per vote.
This was in contrast to other beaten candidates such as Brian Rose, the US millionaire podcaster, who spent £13.69 per vote, and actor Laurence Fox, who stood for the pro-Brexit, anti-lockdown Reclaim party and spent £8.02 per vote.
All three lost their £10,000 deposits because they failed to win five per cent of the votes cast — Count Binface’s only cost in securing 24,775 votes and coming ninth.
Binface, who dresses in fake armour, wanted to rename London Bridge after the actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge and to ban shops from charging more than £1 for a croissant.
During the campaign, polls on social media showed he was attracting a similar level of support to Mr Fox. Mr Rose spent a total of £425,996 running for City Hall — second only to the £428,765 spent by Tory candidate Shaun Bailey, who spent 48p a vote — while Mr Fox spent £382,154.
Mr Rose came seventh with 31,111 votes and Mr Fox sixth with 47,634. Mr Fox’s “anti-woke” campaign was funded by the millionaire financier Jeremy Hosking. YouTube prankster Niko Omilana came fifth with 49,628 votes, having spent £66,395 on his campaign — an average of £1.34 per vote.
Labour’s Sadiq Khan, who was returned for a second term as mayor, spent £422,478 — a total of 42p for each of the 1,013,721 first-preference votes he secured.
The election, which was postponed for a year due to the pandemic, attracted a record 20 candidates, plus 249 for the London Assembly. The analysis, by an assembly committee, found the cost to taxpayers of holding the elections was £38 million — more than double the £16 million cost of the 2016 poll.
More than £7 million had already been spent on the abandoned 2020 poll, the count had to be extended and extra costs were incurred in making the poll “Covid-secure”. But despite the challenges, the handling of the election was deemed “largely successful”.
There were no complaints from candidates, the 42 per cent turnout was “encouragingly high” and the third largest of the six mayoral elections so far, and about 7.8 million ballot papers were counted.
However, there were concerns about a record number of 114,201 rejected ballots — a notable increase because people had voted for more than one first preference mayoral candidate.
The next mayoral election is due to be held in May 2024, on the same day as the general election. The report said that “grave concerns” had been raised over the practicality of having the polls on the same day.
