Real rats in a sack time at the HQ of Times Radio, where its sister paper’s chief political commentator, a regular substitute presenter on the station, has been laying into Count Binface.
Patrick Maguire was guesting on the station’s PMQs Unpacked on Wednesday, reviewing Keir Starmer’s final appearance at the dispatch box, when Reform MP Danny Kruger used his last question to the prime minister to lay into Nigel Farage’s Clacton opponent and the other parties for not standing against him.
Variously calling Binface “a comedian with a dustbin on his head” and “the bin man” rather than using his name, the never knowingly humorous Kruger raged that “a man with a head full of rubbish is a fitting representative of the mainstream parties”. This allowed Starmer to say Farage was “spending his summer arguing with a bin”, which might have been a reasonable farewell gag had his chancellor Rachel Reeves not made it word-for-word seven days ago.
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But Maguire was not amused either. “Thank you Danny Kruger for speaking the truth,” he said. “Binface isn’t funny, I’m sorry, and this is a real election with real people who deserve real representation. [Former education secretary] Justine Greening said this on another radio station last week, and I felt like leaping to my feet.”
His Times colleague, baby-faced columnist James Marriott, had made the same point two days ago in a column headlined “This tedious British whimsy belongs in the bin”.
“James Marriott is right, Justine Greening is right and I’m afraid Danny Kruger is right,” said Maguire.
All a bit awkward for the Times Radio summer party, then – because Binface, or at least Jon Harvey, the comedian under the receptacle, is also a regular substitute presenter on Times Radio, having joined in 2024 and now regularly hosts its Friday evening arts and culture show.
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Perhaps it was this that PMQs Unpacked presenter Hugo Rifkind had in mind when he attempted to interrupt Maguire mid-flow with a plaintive “Jon Harvey’s a nice man”.
“Jon Harvey… I’ve only met him briefly… nice guy,” responded Maguire, the connection perhaps clicking. “Nice guy, in my experience. But I don’t find the character funny, and I don’t think this is funny.”
One to sort out over the chilled wine and nibbles this summer, then!
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