Nigel Farage’s appearance on Laura Kuenssberg’s Sunday morning BBC show generated a myriad of complaints
The BBC has acknowledged that the facts and figures delivered by presenter Laura Kuenssberg during a tense interview with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage were inaccurate. Following numerous complaints, the corporation was forced to issue a clarification and admit that they made a mistake. Farage appeared on the show on July 20, where Kuenssberg tackled him about an allowance received by Scarborough’s Reform mayor, Thomas Murray. However, the figures and percentages presented to the MP were incorrect.
In a post on the corrections and clarification section of the BBC website, the broadcaster said, “In a question to the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, we said, ‘Scarborough Town Council have given its Reform UK mayor a 600% pay rise…a payment of £500 up to £3,500…in principle, is that the right thing to do?’ We accept that it would have been more accurate to describe this as an increase to the mayor’s allowance rather than a pay rise.
Addressing a second inaccuracy, they continued: “Separately, the programme subsequently learned that the reporting on which the question was based has been revised to make clear that £3,500 is the maximum amount that can now be claimed and the new allowance actually represents an increase of 250% and not 600% as previously stated.”
The broadcaster must have received at least 100 complaints about a programme or segment in order to merit publication of a clarification on the website.
During his appearance, Farage also clashed with Kuenssberg over net zero. The presenter pressed him on whether he believes in climate change.
The Clacton MP argued that it was “absolutely mindless for a country that produces less than 1% of global CO2 to beggar itself”. Asked if he believed in “man-made climate change”, Farage said: “Do I believe there’s climate change? Yes. Does man have an influence? Impossible to think we haven’t got some influence as to what proportion it is I’ve no idea.”
The BBC have responded to complaints about Laura Kuenssberg’s recent questioning of Nigel Farage (Image: BBC)
Pressed again, he said: “This is not my religion, this is not my religion, I know it’s the religion in Westminster now in a fairly godless age. The real point about it is, are we going to deindustrialise Britain? There are 2.5 million manufacturing jobs left in Britain that are under threat and could be gone in the next decade unless we change direction, and that particularly relates to energy policy.”
The host highlighted that it was the consensus among scientists that human activity has had a “significant” impact on the climate.
Farage replied: “Well, say it does. Is that sufficient reason to defraud British taxpayers of billions of pounds every year, which is what we’re doing, in subsidising wind energy and solar energy for literally zero effect on global CO2 emissions? The same goes for closing our steel plants and moving the production to India. We’ve got ourselves stuck in this mindset. We believe that man has an influence on changing the climate. I didn’t deny that; I think man does.
“But whether that’s a reason to transfer manufacturing to other parts of the world, to have the most expensive energy prices for industry in the world and to make the poor poorer in society for almost no benefit whatsoever. I doubt it.”
