Farage’s Putin comments could trip him up

‘You know what I am! I’m a fighter, I’m a warrior, I’m a campaigner. I stand up against big institutions when they behave badly, whether they’re banks or out of touch bureaucracies based in Brussels. And very often, I win.’

Nigel Farage finished tonight’s BBC Panorama interview by offering his grand theme as a politician. He had some difficult questions to deal with. Yet Farage doesn’t need to worry as much as the other top politicians about his answers, because he is not judged by the same standards. That’s why he didn’t really engage with Nick Robinson on the detail of his £140 billion a year of spending commitments, or indeed on the comments he had made previously about the King and climate change. 

It’s also why he was able to dismiss the row about some of the comments his candidates have made as someone else’s fault. He did rather dumped the problem on Richard Tice, by saying he hadn’t been involved in the day-to-day running of the party, as well as the vetting company Reform had engaged.