Farage, the man desperate to get on Desert Island Discs, doesn’t listen to music

With the world alight, AI eating our jobs and the prime minister on the verge of being toppled (again), the Mail on Sunday last weekend chose to devote its front page to the scandal of our times – the failure of the BBC to invite Nigel Farage on to Desert Island Discs.

Reporting the unlikely claim that the Beeb had blackballed the Reform leader because “his presence would make woke Corporation staff feel unsafe” Farage’s stenographer Glen Owen was on hand to record his warning that “I have come to expect nothing less from the BBC – their blatant bias has been obvious for years. The BBC will have a rude awakening under a Reform government”.

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Farage has made 38 appearances on the BBC’s Question Time over the years, presumably stealing into the studios at the last moment when woke Corporation staff were looking the other way.

The claim about the BBC’s ban came from the latest knock-’em-out-and-pile-’em-high political biography by former Tory deputy chairman Michael Ashcroft – the businessman whose previous book about David Cameron included the largely discredited claim the future prime minister had once put his honourable member in a dead pig’s mouth.

And the BBC has denied it, confirming that Farage’s team had approached them about his appearing on Lauren Laverne’s Radio 4 show and saying that: “As we are now well into production on our latest series, we’re not currently looking for new castaways.

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“We are always open to inviting guests from across the political spectrum and have said we would be happy to revisit his interest for a future series.”

But how interesting would a trawl through Farage’s cultural hinterland be? Asked by the Observer’s late, great Rachel Cooke in 2015 what music he likes, he said: “None. I don’t listen to music, I don’t watch television, I don’t read.”

Meanwhile, unkind wags have suggested that Farage would be a reluctant castaway, as there is no fee for appearing on the iconic programme.