Attack tells a worrying story about who Farage really is

Nigel Farage's response to an interview reveals more about the man than we could ever have guessed, and the urgent need for the BBC to protect itself

- Alan Rusbridger

“BERNARD MANNING!” Nigel Farage shouted at a hapless ITV reporter yesterday.

“BERNARD MANNING, BERNARD MANNING!” He raged at the BBC’s Emma Barnett, calling her a “lower-grade presenter” and accusing her of asking “despicable, disgusting questions”. He summoned up the ghost of a long-forgotten fictional TV character, Alf Garnett, and demanded an apology from the BBC for some of its comedy shows from the mid- to late-1970s.

It was not easy to follow his line of argument, but let's try.

Farage stands accused by multiple of his school contemporaries of behaving in a racist and bullying way nearly 50 years ago. His deputy, Richard Tice, says his accusers are liars. But Farage seems to be trying a different defence.

"If I did it, and I'm not admitting I did," he seems to be saying, "it was banter. You're judging me by the standards of 2025, but look at the BBC and ITV: they broadcast lots of material that was considered funny back then, but which isn't now. So you're all hypocrites for asking, and is it any wonder half a million people won't pay their licence fee?"

I'm trying to work out how the “Je suis Bernard Manning” defence actually works. For those too young to remember, he was a corpulent Northern club comedian who revelled in shocking audiences by saying the unsayable.

One obituarist in The Guardian wrote of him: “It has been said that Manning was banned from television because of his material, but this is not strictly true. He went on to appear on various BBC and ITV shows, but it became evident that he was engaged in a process of self-marginalisation by refusing to compromise, so in effect, he banned himself from television.”