Farage’s striking slip of the tongue

Talking about the half a million pound donation from ‘Posh’ George Cottrell’s mother, officially a ‘retired stylist’, the Reform leader said: “The idea that his donation,” before checking himself and saying “it was his mother’s donation – this was reported to the NCA [National Crime Agency] in September 2024. The police followed up in the spring of 2025. Why is it now a story? It’s now a story because everything is being coordinated together to try and knock us out of the game.”

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Farage claimed his party was being unfairly targeted over the £500,000 donation to the party from Cottrell’s mother, Fiona, which is under investigation by the police over whether she is the true source of the funding. Deputy leader Richard Tice has described her as “a successful aristocrat”. The Sunday Times reported this weekend that George Cottrell opened an account with an obscure overseas payments company days before it was used to channel the donation to Reform.

Elsewhere in the interview, Farage seemed confused as to what George Cottrell had spent time in prison for, telling his interviewer: “George, as a young man, got into trouble in America. If you are involved in tax avoidance schemes, it is very easy in America to get into very, very big trouble.”

It is indeed – except Cottrell was not jailed for involvement in tax avoidance schemes. He was jailed after conspiring to launder millions of dollars’ worth of drug money using offshore bank accounts after meeting dealers in Las Vegas who turned out to be undercover IRS federal agents. He served eight months after securing a plea deal.

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Reform at war with the speaker, itself and the world more generally

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Meanwhile, even those close to Farage are said to have been described as surprised at the ferocity of an attack he made last week on Tony Gallagher, editor of the Times, who the Reform leader has accused – inaccurately – of reporting his daughter’s address, endangering her life.

Farage is said to have aimed an expletive at Gallagher in a meeting which a source has described as ending in “a strong confrontation”.

He is also said to have been irked by a column in the Sun at the weekend by Trevor Kavanagh, the paper’s octogenarian former political editor whose tealeaves are closely read as reflecting the views of owner Rupert Murdoch. Kavanagh wrote: “We are witnessing the sudden death of a political movement which began as the UK Independence party, morphed into the Brexit party, and now Reform. Or, to simply name names, Nigel Farage.” Et tu, Rupert?