‘Just write some silly story’ – Farage insults female FT reporter after she asks difficult questions
Anna Gross from the Financial Times asked a two-part question at the press conference: about whether Reform UK would create an Ice-style migrant deportation unit, and about all five of the people on the platform having been educated at private schools.
Nigel Farage responded. He said sarcastically that he “loved” the FT; the day after the Mandelson story broke, its front page carried a story about a Reform councillor in Kent, he said. He said there was not point addressing Gross’s question. “Just write some silly story,” he told Gross.
Farage has got form for patronising and insulting female journalist in this way.
(As well as patronising, Farage’s response was unfair. The FT pursued the story about Mandelson’s links with Jeffrey Epstein more aggressively than almost any other UK news organisation.)
Key events
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Ex-Tories in Reform UK just as ‘unfit to govern’ as Tories still in party, Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper says
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Farage says he ‘100%’ supports MMR vaccine – but claims were made about Covid vaccines that weren’t true
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‘Just write some silly story’ – Farage insults female FT reporter after she asks difficult questions
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Braverman says she wants to scrap Equality Act to get rid of ‘divisive notion of protected characteristics’
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Farage rules out pact with Tories, saying they are ‘utterly dishonourable’ and he wouldn’t trust them
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Farage says Rupert Lowe’s claim his new party at 10% in polls ‘utter rot’
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Farage claims there are now ‘very few’ frontline Tories he would want to let join Reform UK
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Tories say new Reform UK line-up looks like ‘tribute act to old Conservative party’
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Farage says, if he were ‘hit by a bus tomorrow’, Reform UK would still succeed because it now has stand-alone brand
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Braverman says Reform UK would abolish ‘equalities department’
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Braverman says she wants fewer young people going to university, and 50% going into trade jobs
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Suella Braverman appointed Reform UK’s spokesperson for education, skills and equalities, Farage says
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Farage confirms Zia Yusuf will be Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson
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Robert Jenrick says as Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson he will develop policies for ‘alarm-clock Britain’
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Tice says Reform would set up sovereign wealth fund to help with reindustrialisation of UK
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Richard Tice would run Reform UK’s new Department of Business, Trade and Energy, and be deputy PM, Farage says
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Farge holds press conference
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Commons business committee may investigate Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s work as trade envoy, its chair says
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150,000 working-age disabled adults to gain at least £400 per year as government raises minimum income guarantee by 7%
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Labour and Tories both braced for bigger losses after U-turn allows 30 local council elections to go ahead
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UK unemployment rate hits five-year high of 5.2% as wage growth cools
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Most people in a future Reform UK cabinet would not be career politicians, Zia Yusuf claims
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Reform UK no longer ‘one-man band’, Farage says as he prepares to announce ‘shadow cabinet’ appointments
Ex-Tories in Reform UK just as ‘unfit to govern’ as Tories still in party, Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper says
Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, has issued a statement about the Reform UK press conference.
Echoing what the Conservative party said (see 11.57am), Cooper said:
This Reform-Tory ‘Fifty Shades of Blue’ love-in is fooling no one.
Robert Jenrick voted for Liz Truss’s economic disaster of a mini-budget, now he wants to do the same damage to the economy all over again.
Nigel Farage is welcome to give his colleagues new name badges but it won’t change the opinion of the country – that Conservatives, current or former, are totally unfit to govern.
Farage says he ‘100%’ supports MMR vaccine – but claims were made about Covid vaccines that weren’t true
Q: There has been a measles outbreak in London. Do you support the MMR vaccine and agree it should not be part of a culture war?
Farage said: “Yes, absolutely, 100%.”
He said he had always thought vaccines had done “a hell of a lot more good than harm”.
But he said that, during Covid, peopl were told the Covid jab meant they would not catch Covid again, or could not pass it on, and that “simply wasn’t true”.
He said the government at the time “told us that while they knew it wasn’t true”.
‘Just write some silly story’ – Farage insults female FT reporter after she asks difficult questions
Anna Gross from the Financial Times asked a two-part question at the press conference: about whether Reform UK would create an Ice-style migrant deportation unit, and about all five of the people on the platform having been educated at private schools.
Nigel Farage responded. He said sarcastically that he “loved” the FT; the day after the Mandelson story broke, its front page carried a story about a Reform councillor in Kent, he said. He said there was not point addressing Gross’s question. “Just write some silly story,” he told Gross.
Farage has got form for patronising and insulting female journalist in this way.
(As well as patronising, Farage’s response was unfair. The FT pursued the story about Mandelson’s links with Jeffrey Epstein more aggressively than almost any other UK news organisation.)
Q: What do you think of Matt Goodwin, your candidate in Gorton and Denton, suggesting women who do not have children should be taxed more?
Farage said he would not want to see anyone taxed more in these circumstances. But he said he could see the case for linking tax breaks to having “quite a few children”.
Q: Do you think Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor should face a police investigation?
Farage said “clearly” he should.
But he also said he wanted to learn more about Peter Mandelson’s links with Russia.
Farage said that he did not accept that state involvement in some industries – a policy Reform UK favours – was “socialist”.
Jenrick backed this up, saying he did not accept that reindustrialisation was socialist either.
Braverman says she wants to scrap Equality Act to get rid of ‘divisive notion of protected characteristics’
Q: Reform UK wants to increase the birth rate. But Suella Braverman is talking about getting rid of the Equality Act. If you get rid of those protections, will it lead to fewer women having children?
Suella Braverman said she wanted to get rid of the Equality Act to get rid of the “pernicious, divisive notion of protected characteristics”.
But that did not mean she wanted to get rid of all employment protection, she said.
Q: Do you want to reduce the proportion of the economy devoted to services?
Richard Tice said he wanted to grow the whole economy. But he said high energy prices had contributed to deindustrialisation. That has been an “absolute disaster”, he said.
He said he would like to see growth back at 3 or 4% per year.
Farage rules out pact with Tories, saying they are ‘utterly dishonourable’ and he wouldn’t trust them
Q: Zia Yousuf hinted at the weekend that he would favour a pact with the Tories, if that was needed to take on a progressive alliance of Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens. Do you agree?
Farage said that was not his view. In parties, sometimes people disagree, he said
He went on:
Look, I’ve no intention of doing a deal and shaking hands with people that I believe to be utterly dishonourable. And that is how I view the Conservative Party.
He said he felt “betrayed” by what the Tories did on Brexit after 2019.
I’ve been in business a long time. I do lots of deals. Some are successful, some are failures. But you know what I do? I look people in the eye. I shake their hands because I trust them. I do not trust this Conservative party.
He said that Kemi Badenoch was “facing both ways at the same time” on Labour cancelling local elections – opposing the policy nationally, while allowing Tory councils to ask for elections to be delayed.
Farage says Rupert Lowe’s claim his new party at 10% in polls ‘utter rot’
Q: Rupert Lowe claims Restore Britain is now polling at 10%.
Farage says polling out later today will show that Lowe’s recognition is “not very high at all”. So the claim that he is at 10% is “utter rot”, he says. He goes on:
He won’t be on 1% anywhere. Not even probably in Great Yarmouth.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/feb/17/reform-farage-shadow-cabinet-local-council-elections-labour-starmer-latest-news-updates
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