Nigel Farage has really done it this time. He may have sailed close to the wind before, but defending the gender pay gap? Telling a group of journalists yesterday that there’s a reason more men have top jobs in business than women? Surely, he won’t get away with that.
As you’d expect he’s been roundly condemned. Natalie Fleet, Labour MP for Bolsover, snapped that Farage ‘seems to be stuck in the 1970s’ and ‘has no idea about the sacrifices women make’. On X, Farage was compared to a ‘dinosaur’ and his assertions, among other things, were described as hateful, wild, horrible and gormless.
Well, it certainly was brave of Farage to delve into the pay gap issue, where men can get paid more than women. And it’s courageous to take on the mighty DEI lobby. But before we castigate him too hastily, it’s worth studying exactly how he replied when asked if men in top jobs are all there on merit: ‘Men are prepared to sacrifice their family lives’, Farage said, ‘in order to pursue a career and be successful in a way that fewer women are.
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