“Unabashed media bias.”
Nigel Farage will miss Prime Minister’s Questions again tomorrow to appear on Times Radio’s ‘alternative version’, PMQs Unpacked.
Critics have pointed out that while Farage should be in the House of Commons for PMQs tomorrow, he will instead be getting more media coverage.
Farage will join Times journalists Hugo Rifkind and Patrick Maguire at midday tomorrow to analyse the exchange between Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch.
Don McGowan, a freelance journalist, criticised Times Radio for giving Farage more airtime when he should be in the Commons.
He wrote: “This is utterly ludicrous. Farage is paid — by us — to attend Parliament. Now the Times are paying him to stay away.
“Unabashed media bias.”
Broadcaster and commentator Narinder Kaur said: “Disappointing unless you ask him how his girlfriend found nearly a million quid for a house for him in Clacton. Otherwise- this is pathetic.”
Another X user commented: “This seems to be a media conspiracy to destroy the country. It’s also profoundly undemocratic to give such a prominent and divisive political figure such a platform.”
Farage has missed several PMQs sessions. On one occasion, Farage missed the weekly questions session to attend a hard-right conference in the US.
In October, he staged a ‘strike’ and sat in the public gallery at PMQs instead of in the Commons chamber.
He said he was protesting against not being called by the Speaker to ask questions in the sessions.
Farage was later mocked as it emerged that he had not put in for an extra question since July, and knew he would have the opportunity to ask a question as Reform leader at PMQs on 12 November.
The Reform leader already has a weekly show on GB News, for which he has been paid nearly £400,000 since August 2024. He also regularly appears on LBC in his ‘Farage Takes Your Calls’ call-in slot with presenter Nick Ferrari.
The BBC and Sky News have also been accused of giving Farage and Reform UK disproportionate media coverage.
A recent study into the impartiality of political news found that Reform, a party with 5 MPs, featured in 25% of the BBC’s news bulletins. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems, who have 72 MPs, appear in a fifth of bulletins (17.9%).
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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