Nigel Farage can be confident of victory against a man posing as an ennobled space traveller with a dustbin on his head. At least, in Clacton he can.

The refusal of major parties to contest this week’s byelection sets the bar low. But even if the competition were more serious than Count Binface, the Reform UK leader would be the favourite to win on his chosen turf. He picked the constituency as his safest shot for a parliamentary seat in the 2024 general election for a reason. Now he is betting that the stench of scandal around his personal and party finances, pungent in Westminster, won’t sicken his fans on the Essex coast.

He’s probably right, which is why Labour and the Conservatives sensibly denied him the spectacle he craved – a “people versus the establishment” prize fight. The plan was to put the question of his failure to declare a £5m donation to the electoral court of Clacton. It would be settled not by adjudication of the parliamentary standards authority but with a knockout blow from the fist of Furious Farage.

Unfortunately for the crypto-billionaires’ champion, the investigation hasn’t disappeared and could resume if he wins his pantomime bout with a bin.

If a subsequent decision goes against him, a second byelection could follow. That twist could easily be written into Farage’s script as further proof that the system was rigged against him; that the acclamation of his innocence by his loyal Essex jury was not sufficient and they must vindicate him again, louder.

The shape of the argument is textbook populism. A candidate’s virtue is measured by the volume of clamour he can summon from a crowd. Institutions of established democracy are valued only as ladders aiding his ascent. If they hold him accountable in any way, they are dismissed as tools of the elite that conspires against the will of the people.

It is a sign of vulnerability that Farage’s........

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