According to my research, the eggs of the charmingly named California least tern (Sternula antillarum browni) have the thinnest-known shell among the fauna of the world. At around 0.14mm, it represents an almost unimaginably brittle and vulnerable carapace for the bird’s offspring during their approximately three-week-long incubation. However, the little sea bird, endangered species as it is, has nothing on Nigel Farage’s ego, which is so fragile that it only takes a few gentle prods from an interviewer to see it shatter all over the place in an explosion of irritability.
My goodness, he is thin-skinned when anyone has the temerity to ask him about his financial affairs and personal conduct. It is something he has in common with his friend and inspiration, Donald Trump. I refer, of course – and here I have to choose my words carefully – to Farage’s home in his Clacton constituency and his response when, in particular, Laura Kuenssberg and Beth Rigby made the most gentle and respectful of enquiries about it. Rigby, indeed, was greeted with a display of indignity not witnessed since the heyday of Dame Edith Evans.
Asked about who actually owns the house and how much stamp duty was paid on it – not that rude, really – Farage, who has been in his fair share of scrapes, behaved as if his dignity had never been affronted in such a manner.
Here’s a clip, as they say:
Rigby: “... because you own multiple homes, and that your partner bought the house in their name and you had nothing to do with it, that meant that the standard rates of stamp duty was paid under...”
Farage: “How dare you. It’s her...”
Rigby: “Well, I’m just...”
Farage: “No, no. How dare you. It’s her business, her money, her asset. And, do you know what? Actually, given that it’s in the constituency for security reasons, it’s better that way.”
Rigby: “Yes, but I’m just saying... You said ‘I’, and that wasn’t inclusive.”
Farage: “All right. I shouldn’t have said ‘I’. I should have said ‘We’. It’s her money. It’s her asset. I own none of it. But I just happen to spend some time there.”
Rigby: “I know, but the reason I’m pointing out... You’ve done nothing wrong. I mean, it’s completely legal. You can live in that house and she could have...”
Farage: “Yeah, yeah...”
Kuenssberg was, if anything, even more genuflectory in her approach, suggesting that, compared with the finances of most folk, this wealthy man’s “tax and business affairs aren’t exactly straightforward” – a comment to which Farage immediately “took exception”.
She pressed on: “Well, I’m just going to ask you about it, because I know you said you want to be transparent and open. Your constituency home where you stay in Clacton is owned by your partner, I believe...”. Visibly annoyed, Farage replied: “So?”
Kuenssberg continued: “You have a separate company for your earnings outside of being an MP...”
At which point, Farage interrupted: “Number one, those are two separate questions...” And off he went.
Such exchanges, impudent or not, need not have provoked such hostility on the part of Farage, who is often so relaxed, jovial and confident in interviews. He rarely gets rattled over the most egregious of misbehaviour on the part of colleagues, or his party’s absurdly impractical policies.
That questions of financial propriety elicited such cagey responses does tend to raise more questions – and pressing ones, given his ambition to be prime minister, not to mention the recent scandal surrounding Angela Rayner’s tax affairs in an entirely different coastal resort in southern England.
But now we know. The Clacton property, reportedly worth almost £900,000, is in the name of Farage’s long-term partner, 46-year-old Laure Ferrari. “Normal” stamp duty was paid on it, by her, and, according to Farage, it was very definitely “her money” that paid for it.
The question of stamp duty still arises. In the words of the tax legend Dan Neidle: “Did Nigel Farage avoid higher-rate stamp duty because his partner bought their Clacton house? If she bought it out of her own funds: not tax avoidance. If he provided the funds: tax avoidance. But he says he didn’t, and there’s no evidence to suggest otherwise.”
Indeed so. But it would be helpful, in the public interest and in the cause of transparency, if there were a little more certainty about where Ferrari found the funds, in order to eliminate any doubt about whether they came, directly or indirectly, from Farage. That would require an intrusion into his private affairs, and hers – but that is the kind of thing that politicians aspiring to the highest office have to put up with.
It would also be interesting to know why Ferrari, who is French, bought a place in this part of the country, and how much time she and Farage spend there. Does the property, for example, qualify for the single-person rate of council tax, or is it liable for the second-home rate? Who pays for that – is it Ferrari herself, or the taxpayer via Farage’s MP expenses?
Farage’s constituents may not be bothered about whether he spends much time in Clacton, or whether Ferrari has ever been fleetingly glimpsed shopping in Frinton or taking advantage of the genuinely lovely sandy beach in Jaywick, but it seems a fair question to ask. And not an offensive one, at any rate.
We might also wonder why Farage so often “misspoke” about who owns the freehold property, why he doesn’t publish his tax returns, and why he is not more forthcoming about his business interests more broadly, behind what little can be gathered from the records at Companies House and in the register of MPs’ interests.
There is also the particular issue of his financial relationship with GB News, for whom he used to present a nightly talk show, which might be of concern to Ofcom and its rules on political balance. To be fair, he has disclosed payments made by GB News to his company, Thorn in the Side Ltd – of some £400,000 since the election alone – and the company pays 25 per cent corporation tax on the profits, rather than the at least 40 per cent in income tax he would be liable for if he were paid a salary.
There is no question of illegality or impropriety in any of this. But there is what the spin doctors call “the optics”, the regulators call “transparency”, and the voters vaguely like to think of as fairness.
Farage could actually just ape Donald Trump’s disarming honesty when Hillary Clinton accused him during the 2016 presidential debate of paying too little tax: “That makes me smart.” Farage has already defended himself as a successful entrepreneur, and his personal fortune has not stopped him from getting elected, either to Westminster or to the European parliament (which, by the way, owes him a considerable old-age pension). Farage may be the highest-earning MP by a mile, and one of the richest, even though he represents the most deprived district in England. But there’s no great puzzle in that: people there, and elsewhere, feel as though he speaks for them.
He shouldn’t have his extreme affluence held against him. However, he would find things much easier if he were more open and rather less touchy when people enquire about his money. They’re just asking questions, after all.
