The joke isn't the bin. The joke is pretending the man inside it is some random eccentric. Jonathan David Harvey is an Oxford-educated writer with three decades at the heart of the BBC comedy establishment, writing for programmes such as The Thick of It, Have I Got News For You and Yes Minister. He's won awards, been celebrated by the media, and is hardly an unknown outsider.
So let's stop pretending Count Binface is just a bloke who wandered into politics wearing a wheelie bin.
The costume is the gimmick. The career behind it is anything but.