NEVER before has the conclusion of a parliamentary by-election been so much more about the choreography than it was about the actual result, and it's possible that Nigel Farage's seemingly bizarre decision not to attend the declaration of the vote in Clacton he engineered himself may have won him a small tactical victory over the Conservative Party in particular.
Reform UK strategists had presumably given considerable thought to how they could most effectively counter the narrative that Farage had wasted everyone's time by choosing to pointlessly "spend the summer arguing with a bin" as Rachel Reeves put it, and what they appeared to settle on was an attempt to turn the tables and make the major established parties look ridiculous by associating them with Count Binface, who Farage painted as the candidate of the "uniparty" and alleged had received assistance from Tory, Labour and LibDem canvassers.
