A man with a rubbish bin on his head, who presents himself as a "cosmic warrior", has become the biggest problem for Nigel Farage - and not as a joke, but as a political tactic that actually works. His name is Count Binface, and behind the mask stands a BBC comedy writer, Jonathan David Harvey.

The story starts when Farage, leader of Reform UK, resigned his seat in Clacton to run again - arguing that the row over undeclared donations should be settled by voters, not by parliament's ethics committee. We're talking about 5 million pounds from a crypto millionaire, plus funding for staff and security. When the big parties pulled out of that "stitched-up" by-election, Binface stepped in.

His platform is deliberately absurd: nationalise the singer Adele and cap the price of a croissant at one pound. But behind the humour there's a point. "Farage says he wants the people against the elite. Fine, let him have it. Leave me be", Binface said. Satire hits where direct criticism can't - through ridicule.

The effect is such that even papers sympathetic to Farage couldn't ignore it. One of them ran the headline: "When the voters shout at you, it's bad. When they laugh at you, you're finished." And there lies the whole wisdom of this story - politicians know how to defend themselves against attack, but few defend themselves successfully against mockery. Britain has a long tradition of eccentric candidates like this, and Binface is just its latest heir. The question is why satire so rarely enters politics here in the Balkans - maybe because our reality is already absurd enough.