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Reform's Robert Jenrick wanted to announce his party's new tax policy, but Matthew Wright couldn't not mention the latest donation scandal to dog Reform.
Speaking to LBC on Friday, the Reform UK leader desperately sought to deny wrongdoing as he insisted everything was "above board".
He insisted there was "nothing illegal" about his officials accepting overseas donations for three polls commissioned earlier this year - despite rival parties including the Lib Dems reporting Reform to the police over the claims.
"The party has broken no laws. The party has not taken any dodgy money or anything like that", he told Nick Ferrari at Breakfast.
Senior aide to Farage Dan Jukes and Reform's Head of Policy, James Orr both left their roles over the sting.
Farage said: "This is a massive sting operation. It must have cost them hundreds of thousands of pounds, all foreign funded, by the way.
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0:00
He's got quite a story to share with his delegates
0:02
Pledged to increase the tax-free personal allowance to 15 grand in his first budget
0:08
It would be the single largest increase to the tax-free personal allowance in history
0:12
It would save the majority of taxpayers around £500 a year. It would benefit 40 million people altogether, take 2.9 million people out of income tax
0:22
and it would ensure the state pension would remain untaxed. I reckon it's going to cost something like £17.7 billion
0:30
rising to just over £20 billion by year five. How's it going to be paid for
0:34
Well, I'm joined by Robert Gendrick this morning from Conference. Nice to see you. How will you pay for it
0:40
Well, good question. And people are sick of people making these promises and not being able to do them
0:45
So we've done our sums, and we've set out £80 billion of savings already
0:51
Most of that comes from the welfare budget, getting people off welfare back into the workplace
0:54
We published a 50-page document just the other day, which sets that out
0:59
Plus, not paying foreign aid to rich countries, not doing the net zero subsidies that we have right now
1:05
removing krangos, reducing the size of the civil service. By doing those things, taking those choices, which are tough choices in many cases
1:13
we're able to do this big tax cut for working people because we feel people are hard up right now
1:18
They're finding life very, very difficult. They'll be listening to this show this morning, having got up early, going to work, you know, and sometimes just finding that the hard day's work doesn't even pay the bills at the end of the week, let alone give you the money that you need to go on a Friday night or buy a car or go on holiday
1:34
and this tax cut gives people just a little bit extra money
1:39
and if we can keep going higher, we will do. We want to get this personal allowance up to £20,000
1:44
by the end of the next Parliament but we're promising no ifs, no buts
1:49
£15,000 in the first reform budget within 100 days. You could make it bigger
1:55
You could make it bigger by taking away the subsidies we pay to fossil fuel companies
1:59
which are twice as large as the subsidies, more than twice as large as the subsidies we pay to net zero
2:04
I mean, it seems bizarre you'd pick on net zero and not the big boys. Well, we don't generally subsidise oil and gas
2:11
What we do do is... £17.5 billion, Mr General, per year. We tax them through the hilt at the moment
2:17
and that's killing the whole industry. As you can see, hundreds of thousands of jobs are being lost
2:21
in the north-east of Scotland at the moment. BP is selling off its whole North Sea business I want those jobs in the UK I want to ensure that we get good jobs back in this country But the point is this If we can make these savings then we be able to give people this big tax cut
2:37
And it's only reform that's going to be able to offer this because the other parties, particularly the Labour Party
2:42
are just not prepared to make the changes to welfare that's necessary. So you saw Rachel Rees try to do this much smaller scale a couple of years ago
2:50
The Labour backbenchers rebelled and it didn't happen. Is Andy Burnham going to do something
2:54
I don't know. We'll have to wait. I don't think anybody knows what Andy Burnham's going to do at the moment, I have to say
3:01
Nigel Farage, your leader, was in robust form with his speech to conference yesterday
3:07
I mean, there were so many pledges that it's difficult to go through them all
3:11
But one I was interested in is his view on judges. He says Parliament makes the law, judges interpret the law
3:17
We will do whatever it takes and perhaps have to consider how judicial appointments work in the future
3:22
is quite a threat coming from a party that's been accused of breaking the law itself, isn't it
3:29
I think it's an important point here, which is that time and again
3:34
politicians have made promises at elections and they've just not managed to deliver them
3:38
And maybe that was because they didn't mean them in the first place. Maybe it was that the British state is so broken that it stopped them from actually happening
3:45
And people are sick to death of that. The country's in a mess right now
3:48
Britain is broken. It needs real change. And what Nigel is saying is that if you get a reform government, it is going to be different
3:55
We're going to get in, declare a national emergency, get Parliament sitting round the clock
4:00
you know, six days a week, getting stuff done. And yet if things happen, like, say, our policy on stopping the small boats is held up in the courts
4:10
we'll come back to Parliament and we'll change the law. Parliament is sovereign
4:14
And there are some cases, I'm afraid to say, where you've got judges who are not really impartial
4:20
who've allowed their own personal politics to seep into the decisions that they're taking
4:25
I've laid these out in the recent past on the immigration tribunals, for example
4:29
where we found judges who have been on the boards of open borders charities
4:34
or who have been tweeting disagreeing with the government of the day's policies
4:39
That's not right. We want to have a position which we've always enjoyed in this country
4:43
where the rule of law, judges are impartial. So politically appointed judges, though, politically appointed judges
4:50
You'd be comfortable with that, would you? Well it not about politically appointed judges What as I said in the past is that we just need to return to the position as it was not so long ago where you had a more robust judicial appointments procedure than we do today
5:05
And if there's any evidence whatsoever of bringing your politics into the job
5:11
irrespective of what that is, you know, left wing, right wing, you name it, you should be out
5:16
Everyone wants to think that judges, when they put that wig on, that they are being completely independent and impartial
5:22
Does the same sort of you're out dogma apply to politicians who might find themselves in breach of the law
5:31
I mean, your party is admired in scandal at the moment. You yourself are being investigated over a £37,500 donation
5:39
Well, I'm not actually being investigated. There's a donation that was given to my leadership campaign
5:44
during the Tory leadership campaign that is being investigated, but not myself personally
5:48
OK, so just the money. with respect to what's happened in the last few days
5:54
Nigel's acted very swiftly there was some unfortunate comments which were very disappointing
5:59
yeah for sure by these two people who were involved in the party they've been removed and that's what you'd expect
6:04
from a decisive leader they're gone, the party will make sure that that sort of thing never happens
6:10
Nigel himself appeared to be quite pleased with their work in the documentary
6:15
bang for the buck and all of that so that would imply that he knew a lot about what was going on
6:21
so maybe he should recluse himself. Well, he didn't. He didn't know what was going on
6:25
Let's be very clear. What did happen was he went out for lunch
6:29
with some people who were offering to donate to the party and he was polite to them
6:33
That's what you would expect and party leaders have to do all the time
6:38
That is just a feature of being a party leader. But let's be very clear, he didn't know anything about this stuff
6:43
These are two people who worked for the party, were involved in the party. They made a mistake
6:47
It was a very strange comment at the end, because it certainly gave the very strong impression
6:52
He knew exactly what was going on, and he was very happy with the result. And regardless of whether money is paid to reform or not
7:01
the idea of allegedly conspiring to receive money from foreign donors is in itself illegal
7:08
No. Nigel didn't know anything about this. What he said was that these people had commissioned some polls that appeared on the front page of newspapers
7:16
and that that had an effect. And also just remember what that was, by the way
7:20
That was the Labour government cancelling the local elections for five million people across the country and reform making that point these people uh who turned out to be uh to be climate change pranksters uh paying for a poll that highlighted
7:37
the fact that people didn't like this and then reform taking the government to court and getting
7:41
those elections back on again and the elections went brilliantly for reform it has to be said
7:47
um sweat the board but the aftermath has been what we have a reform councillor resigning
7:51
once every three days. It costs, I believe, £38,000 for each of those elections to be restaged
7:58
So far from saving Burroughs money, it costs us a fortune. You're saying there's been a couple of reform councillors
8:06
who've stepped down and that's cost some money. Keir Starmer has stepped down
8:11
and is causing a by-election. We've just said Andy Burnham has orchestrated a by-election
8:16
in Lancaster. We can criticise him too. It's cost £5 million. £10. You promised to reduce council tax bills and they've been going up, Robert
8:23
If you're talking about the taxpayer here, some councillor in Chipping Snodbury stepping down
8:29
and having to be a by-election there versus the mayor of Manchester stepping down
8:34
and spending £5 million in a by-election there, come on, be reasonable
8:38
Now, Nigel Farage called for a general election because Andy Burnham doesn't have legitimacy, as he said
8:45
And I just wonder how much legitimacy you think you have as nobody voted for you as a reform MP
8:51
Well, they voted for our system is that you vote for an individual. And my politics hasn't changed. And, you know, my constituents, I think, are clear about that
8:58
What do I stand for? Securing up orders, ensuring that working people keep more of their money
9:03
tough approach to crime, ensuring that we have pride in this country. These are reforms policies. Unfortunately, the Tory party didn't stand for those things
9:11
OK, but when you jumped ship from the Tories to reform, reform were booming at 30-plus in the opinion polls
9:18
and the Tories were going to do the sink at 20% and under. You jumped ship and today I noticed that reform were in third place and the Tories are back in second place
9:28
I just wondered if you have any regrets about leaving your old colleagues behind. No, absolutely not. Best decision I've ever made
9:34
Well, actually, that was marrying my wife, but second best decision I've ever made was joining reform
9:38
She's listening to this, so I need to be careful. You're not tempted to jump back ship now the Tories are leading again
9:44
The Tories are leading? What old is this? You've been talking about dodgy polls today
9:50
but I haven't seen one that says the Tory party are leading. It's only one point, and they're leading you, that's all
9:54
The Labour at Mileshead, but leading you. Well, look, one swallow doesn't make a summer
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