From 1h agoPolls open in Clacton, as research shows Farage has spent more than £10,000 in byelection fight against Count BinfaceGood morning. In the media, August is known as the “silly season”. With parliament not sitting and many people on holiday, there is less proper news than normal, which means the nonsense stories get (even) more attention than usual. We are almost slap bang in the middle of the month, and today we’ve got a silly season classic in Clacton, where Nigel Farage, the Reform UK candidate, is fighting a byelection in which his main opponent is a joke candidate who dresses up as a dustbin.Farage is not inherently silly. Few politicians have been more consequential over the past quarter of a century (because he did more than any other single individual to make the Brexit referendum happen); for most of the past 16 months his party has had a big poll lead and he has a very realistic chance of being the next PM; and even if he doesn’t become PM, his hard-right, anti-migrant, crass, crypto-friendly populism will have changed British politics significantly.But this byelection is rather absurd because it is essentially pointless; all it will do is postpone, not resolve, the verdict on the financial sleaze allegations that Farage is facing (his alleged failure to properly declare donations, including a £5m gift from a cryptocurrency billionaire).Here is Alexandra Topping’s story.Voting started in Clacton about two hours ago.Normally there is not much new to report on polling day. But Politico has published a good story by John Johnston and he reveals that Reform UK has spent more than £10,000 during the election campaign on social media adverts designed to help it see off the threat from Count Binface. Johnston says: