It’s Farage versus Trump

Et tu, Nigel? Nigel Farage, until now an unquestioning devotee of the Church of Trump, was on LBC today to distance himself from his hero’s disastrous tariff wars.

Asked by his erstwhile employer whether Trump would emerge as victor in his “easy to win” tariff war, Farage said: “Remains to be seen. I’ve never agreed with the tariff policy. I do understand, though, that China poses an existential threat to the West economically and perhaps even, ultimately, in different ways as well.

“Do you know what? I think Trump did too much too soon, rather like Liz Truss did a couple of years ago. I’ve never in my life before seen stock markets fall quickly and bond markets fall at the same time.”

Farage has certainly changed his tune on Truss’s mini-budget. When it was first unveiled in September 2022 he immediately took to social media to declare that “today was the best Conservative budget since 1986”. How quickly they forget!

Still, at least one person is guaranteed to be protected from any bumps and scrapes in the economy, and that’s the MP who has just secured his 10th “second” job since being elected as an MP just nine months ago. It emerged yesterday that he had secured a AU$52,000-a-year (£25,000) role as a political pundit for Sky News Australia, treating those down under to views that he will then disown within a couple of years.

As of February, Farage had already reported £680,000 in outside earnings in Parliament’s Register of Members’ Interests. His £204,492 for presenting his GB News show adds to £8,619 from Elon Musk’s X, £24,000 from the Telegraph media group, £2,776 from Meta, £81,348 for videos made for Baron App Inc, £25,303 and £40,075 for speeches made at AZ Liberty and Nomad Capitalist, £14,832 from Google and £280,500 from gold company Direct Bullion.

Oh, and he gets £91,346 plus expenses for being an MP, although nobody could accuse him of doing “too much too soon” for his beleaguered constituents in Clacton!