NIGEL Farage’s finances are once again under scrutiny, but it wasn’t the Reform UK leader who took on the Sunday broadcast round to defend being funded by a convicted criminal.
Instead it was Robert Jenrick, who was booted out of the Tories after his plan for a headline-grabbing defection to Farage’s party was uncovered, who had the task of explaining the murky web of cash around his boss.
For those who may have missed it – the Sunday Times revealed that Farage could have broken MPs’ rules by failing to declare staffing, security and housing costs that were paid for by long-time aide George Cottrell.
“Posh George”, as he is known, was jailed for eight months in the US in 2017 after pleading guilty to a charge of wire fraud after admitting attempting to defraud criminals on the dark web by masquerading as a money launderer.
That Farage did not declare the funding provided by Cottrell in the 12 months before he was elected, is the crux of the issue.
But when Jenrick was rolled out on to the Sunday morning breakfast round to respond to the story, two very different interviews took place – one on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg and the other on GB News.
A clip of one of those interviews has gone viral for putting Jenrick on the back foot, and it wasn’t the public broadcaster.
An almost five-minute-clip from The Camilla Tominey Show gathered more than 175,000 views on Twitter/X.
Jenrick clearly thought he was going to have an easy time on GB News, even dropping in that Farage was a GB News presenter during the period he is now under scrutiny for. You can actually see Jenrick's eyes begin to blink rapidly as Tominey reads out the House of Commons rules to him, potentially trying to work out which studio he had found himself in.
“At the time he was an ex-politician, he’d been in the jungle, he was presenting a GB News show, and an old friend of his gave him some support for things like security and staff to load up videos onto social media of his performances on GB News, so it’s nothing to do with his performance as a Member of Parliament, he wasn’t a Member of Parliament,” Jenrick argued.
Tominey even went so far as to say: “You can do the whole ‘there’s nothing to see here’, clearly there’s something to see, because at the moment he’s under investigation for Christopher Harborne’s £5 million isn’t he?”
In response, Jenrick launched into a rant accusing the Sunday Times of being a Labour supporting newspaper who were scared of Farage and trying to protect the establishment and “besmirch his reputation”, which Tominey then countered by saying it was “legitimate” investigations made by journalists of a man who is aiming to be prime minister.
When Tominey raised Cottrell’s criminal history, Jenrick then tried to fob it off saying “he’s just an old friend” and that he believes in people being given second chances.
On the BBC’s flagship political programme, Jenrick used a similar tactic to deflect from the story, hitting out at the Times and claiming they were trying to “drag Nigel down”.
He claimed that Farage is the “most endangered person in public life”, before turning the conversation to Andy Burnham – an issue that dominated the top of the programme.
Jenrick then claimed that Burnham would raise taxes, with a slight push back from Kuenssberg who said it “wasn’t clear” what the Makerfield would do in Number 10.
It took almost four minutes for Kuessberg to redirect the interview back to Farage, where she noted that Reform claims to be the party standing up for working people despite repeated revelations about the party leader’s finances.
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— jamie jackson (@JamieJackson___) July 5, 2026
Jenrick – again unchallenged – claimed the Tories were the party of “Belgravia and the super rich”, Labour were for “Benefits Street” and Farage is the “most consistent politician in this country in my lifetime”.
Kuenssberg’s last question was if Farage should “take some time out and have a bit of a break”. Twice the BBC journalist interjected into Jenrick’s response by asking: “He’s not going anywhere?”
“He’s not going anywhere, I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Jenrick responded.
When you compare the two interviews side by side it exposes one of the big problems with the BBC.
If even a channel that is steeped in right-wing ideology and vested interests that are intertwined with Farage and Reform – they literally pay his wages! – is willing to challenge one of his allies more robustly than our public service broadcaster, it raises serious questions about its editorial judgment and consistency.
