It’s unusual to see Nigel Farage so rattled. At a press conference yesterday, a BBC reporter asked the Reform leader about his deputy, Richard Tice, who had appeared on Radio 4 that morning. The interviewer had asked Tice about Farage’s schooldays, and reports from contemporaries that Farage had been known for racist, anti-Semitic bullying. Tice had responded saying it was all lies. Did Farage agree?
On reflection, it was unsurprising that Farage took the BBC question first. He knew what it would be about. His response was obviously pre-prepared.
Farage started off by saying he thought the “lower grade” presenter who had grilled Tice was “utterly disgraceful”. And then things took an unusual turn.
“At the time I was alleged to have made these remarks,” Farage told the BBC reporter, “one of your most popular weekly shows was the Black and White Minstrels, right? The BBC were very happy to use blackface.”
“You did it in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, as well,” Farage told a mystified audience. “And what about Alf Garnet?” he asked, before adding, “oh and what about Bernard Manning?”
And then came the kicker: “I want an apology from the BBC for virtually everything you did throughout the 1970s and 80s,” Farage said petulantly, before informing the BBC reporter that he would not be speaking to the BBC any more until he had received that apology.
In a way it was a sign of progress – for Farage to admit that Britain has a morally dubious past and that apologies are in order for historic wrongs is an argument currently favoured by people seeking reparations from the British government for slavery. The next Reform manifesto might make for surprising reading.
Having dealt with the poor Beeb, Farage called a reporter from ITV, and immediately the subject of his racist school days came up again. When the journo asked why fellow pupils recalled Farage making “hissing noises” at Jewish pupils, Farage bellowed, “Bernard Manning, Bernard Manning, Bernard Manning,” at the bemused hack until he gave up trying to ask a question.
“You were the channel of Bernard Manning,” the Reform leader continued, perhaps unaware that many people in the audience and watching at home would probably have no idea who Bernard Manning was. Not everyone is as familiar with his work as Farage appears to be.
And then came Farage’s very carefully-worded response: “Your channel, at the same time I was accused of saying this – which I deny, in any nasty or malicious way – at the same time as that, you, every single week, had homophobic content, you had racist content.”
It was a denial / non-denial that sounded very strongly like it had been heavily lawyered.
But there was no mistaking it. Despite his pre-prepared, clever-clever response to the BBC, Farage looked deeply uncomfortable, and his trawl through the sitcoms of the 1970s was simply weird. It’s true, there was a shameful record of televised racism during the 70s and 80s. But then, none of those shows included people making jokes about the Holocaust. Nigel’s on his own on that one.
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