‘If it’s the Tin Man, then I suppose I’ll vote for Nigel,” says a Clacton resident, a retiree on a slow stroll towards the seafront, when I ask whom she will vote for in the forthcoming byelection. “I would sooner have Farage than the Tin Man!” As political slogans go, it is as good as any.The sun is beating down, but the sky is hazy, which accurately describes the mood of this constituency since the Reform UK leader quit as MP for Clacton on 7 July, forcing a byelection that sent shock waves through Westminster and confusion through Clacton. I am spending a couple of days here with the photographer Andy Hall, traversing the coast between Jaywick to the west and Walton-on-the-Naze to the east. An incessant wind is blowing from the North Sea, sending waves crashing on to Clacton beach. Nicky Friday, who at 11am is already handing out 99s from her aptly named kiosk, Seabreeze, isn’t exactly exercised by the Reform UK leader’s latest gambit. “This is going to sound terrible, but I’m so busy running this business and working here,” she says. “I don’t really do politics.”
Nicky Friday, who owns and runs the Seabreeze kiosk in Clacton
During summers past, many of us were like Friday. The warmer months during the UK parliament’s recess are known as the silly season because usually nothing political happens, leaving journalists to chase flights of fancy. The most famous summer story from this constituency is perhaps that of the lion that was reportedly on the loose in St Osyth in August 2012, which was later scaled down to an admittedly large pet cat. That was until Farage decided to “spend the summer arguing with a bin”, as the then chancellor, Rachel Reeves, put it.Count Binface (AKA the satirist Jon Harvey) has contested high-profile elections since running against Boris Johnson in 2019. His election would be fanciful, but not unprecedented: in 2002, a monkey was elected mayor of Hartlepool when Stuart Drummond, who worked as the local football mascot, H’Angus the Monkey, promised among other things free bananas for schoolchildren. Binface is promising to “build at least one affordable house”. All in all, 34 candidates are contesting the seat – including Laurence Fox, three candidates from the Monster Raving Loony party and the leader of the Everyone is God party, which preaches sex positivism and criminalising rudeness.
