It has been an interesting year for onetime Rada star Laurence Fox. The former Lewis actor turned Question Time guest announced he was running for London mayor last month but has thus far barely managed to make a ripple ahead of polling day in just a week’s time.
A city-wide poll last week showed the culture warrior on just a miserly 1 per cent — the same number as self-proclaimed joke candidate Count Binface. Whereas the former boasts of having a £5 million war chest for his ‘Reclaim’ party, the latter has had to crowdfund the £10,000 deposit needed for his campaign.
Binface told Steerpike that all excess money will be donated to Shelter after the election and that he had checked all the donations had come through permissible sources adding: ‘You may wonder whether the Prime Minister has been paying as much attention to the Electoral Commission’s rules, but on that subject I couldn’t possibly comment.’
Fox’s campaign meanwhile has spent £18,881 in Facebook advertising over the last seven days — nearly three times as much as Shaun Bailey’s official page for £6,088 or £18,881 more than Sadiq Khan whose page recorded total spend of, err, £0. Spending totals will be declared in due course after the election but Mr S understands the Reclaim candidate has been offering the equivalent of annual six figure salaries for jobs on his campaign team. His campaign manager is former Brexit party MEP Matthew Patten, while a deputy leadership appointment is expected shortly.
Fox has had the backing of both Nigel Farage and Richard Tice’s Reform party and benefited from an excess of media interest in his flamboyant electioneering, with one national newspaper sending half a dozen journalists along to his campaign launch. Sadly though his onetime acting colleagues appear more reticent to give him their seal of approval while his former wife actress Billie Piper has thus far declined to endorse his flatlining campaign, having backed Labour in 2019.
Mr S awaits to see the results next Thursday but suspects the looming end of lockdown may well have shot the former actor’s fox.
Comments