Has Trump just trashed his own World Cup? | The News Agents

Donald Trump placed a call to FIFA's president Gianni Infantino.

It is so ugly.It is so reprehensible.

That that red card should be rescinded to allow Balogun to be part of the team tonight.

It was absolutely pusillanimous on the part of Infantino to go, oh, yes, Donald, let's look at it and we'll try and sort this out.

What do you have here?You have Trump deciding that he has to respond as emperor.

It's about politics.It's about crude muscle.and Donald Trump just throwing his weight around.

What is going on?

Where do you draw the line?

That's the question I ask, I have no answer to that.Where does this end now?Do we appeal if a yellow card is not a yellow card?Do we think it's not a red card?Where does this start and where does this end?It's my question, I don't have an answer.

Can Harry maybe ask Donald Trump?

Maybe, yeah.That's a good starting point.

That's the England manager, Thomas Tuchel, talking about red cards and match bans.He's not really talking about what happened overnight, that magnificent match where England beat Mexico.He's talking about another red card and he's talking about the involvement of one Donald Trump who magically made a match ban disappear.Has this World Cup just turned into a playground for Donald Trump?Welcome to The News Agents.

The News Agents.

It's Maitlis.

It's Jon.In Mexico City.

And we are going to tell you about the dirty side of this World Cup in a moment because things have taken a turn for the worse by the intervention of one of our friends in the White House.That to come.But honestly, if you wanted to get a sense of just how powerful a national moment and a sporting moment can be, you were just in the right place at the right time last night.So I feel like actually we've been talking all night already.

I know.Look, the Azteca Stadium is like nothing I've ever been to before.I mean, it's vast, it's huge, but the noise was utterly deafening.And when the Mexicans sang their national anthem with such gusto, people crying while they were singing it, it was really beautiful to behold.And likewise, when we sang, you know, God Save the King, every England fan was up there at the top of their voices and the noise inside the stadium was deafening.And it was all about what was best in football.

This was a breathless encounter by two teams quite evenly matched.It ends up 3 -2 with a sending off two penalties and extra time that went on for 11 minutes that felt like 11 hours.And honestly, I felt I had aged about 11 years.And, you know, all of this in this hostile cauldron of a place, the Azteca.packed and the English were so outnumbered.And yet the game went on and it was like a siege at the end, where, you know, from history, the siege of Mafeking, or when, you know, your soldiers are running out of ammunition, there are only a few of them left, but you hold off the attackers.

And that's what England did last night with Mexico City.And at the end of the game, it was a really fantastic atmosphere.And that was all that was best about the World Cup.Cup.All that you love about the World Cup was on show in the Azteca last night.

And Mexico have never lost a World Cup game in that stadium.I mean, I know there was a lot of nervousness seeing how defensively we had to play.As you say, it was this sort of wall that came up, but it was like every single team member was there absolute best in that 105 minutes in the end, wasn't it, last night?

Yeah, it was.I thought it was absolutely amazing.I thought that every single player, I mean, you know, everyone talks about the superstars of Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham.And they were brilliant, you know, Jude Bellingham was extraordinary.Every player really put their body and soul into it.And, you know, I kind of, and also Thomas Tuchel changed the system.

Suddenly, there were five defenders, he had the, you know, we talk about Keir Starmer, about the fact that he couldn't adjust his style.And that was the accusation about Gareth Southgate when he was England manager.And with Thomas Huckel, he just saw what needed to happen.And, you know, change the formation when we were down to 10 men, and it was 3 -2, and we were clinging on by our fingertips for dear life.There was one very amusing moment where, when we were 2 -0 up and we were feeling very relaxed, Mexico suddenly scored.And I was with a group of England fans.

And suddenly, all of a sudden, we are showered in beer, people with their beer cups.And so once Mexico got the penalty, when it was, you know, we thought, Christ almighty, we know what we've got to do now, get our coats on, put our cagoules on, put our hoods up, and we will huddle together.And sure enough, another shower of beer came all over us.But we were okay.I probably don't smell that great right now.And probably this shirt does need to go in the washing machine.

But interestingly, When Thomas Tuchel was giving the press conferenceone of the questions was about our player that was Kwanzaa, that was sent off with a red card.And the reason he was asked about it was not just the sort of comings and goings of all the sort of, you know, the disciplinary action in a game, but the fact that overnight, one of the most egregious interceptions in any World Cup took place.And that is, from what we understand from reporting via the New York Times, that Donald Trump placed a call to FIFA's president, Gianni Infantino, after the game between America and Bosnia on Thursday night, in which an American player, Balagan, was given a red card, which means technically he would not have been able to play in a fixture with Belgium.tonight.Now, miraculously, after four nights of thinking about it, FIFA suddenly decided that that red card should be rescinded, suspended, magicked away, I think is the technical phrase, to allow Balogun to be part of the team tonight.

And this has left an extraordinarily nasty stench over a World Cup that up to this point was going fantastically well.

It is so ugly.It is so reprehensible.The idea that an elected politician tells the head of a football authority which players can and cannot play on the field.It was absolutely out of order for Donald Trump to have made the call to Infantino.And it was absolutely pusillanimous on the part of Infantino to go, Oh, yes, Donald, let's look at it.And we'll try and sort this out.

Honestly, in the stadium last night, as I said, it was the very best of what football can offer on the pitch.And they flashed up a picture of Infantino.And suddenly, Mexican and England fans are booing in unison, because no one can defend something like that.It's just a gross interference.It's absolutely improper.What on earth is he doing?

Trying to kind of influence this.And it's been the law in football for decades now that if you are sent off, it's a mandatory you know, you're banned from the next game or the next three games or whatever it happens to be.And so for Donald Trump to do this means that this isn't about sport anymore.And maybe we're naive in thinking this is the beautiful game.It's about politics.It's about crude muscle.

And Donald Trump just throwing his weight around an infantino who we know, we know is not the greatest, is he?

Just to put this in context, on Thursday night, when there was all the hoo -ha about the red card, FIFA sources said after the match there was no recourse for an appeal.They actually cited Article 66 .4 of its disciplinary code.And the irony is, I think, that we had just stopped talking about corruption in this World Cup.We just stopped talking about the exorbitant prices or the racial bans or the uneasy smell of America being on the make and trying to get the FIFA Peace Prize last December to sort of tie in that wonderful relationship.we just started to concentrate on the actual game, on the actual football, on the actual magnificence of the players.And then this comes.

And if you talk to the White House or if you ask them for the official statement, they will say, oh, no, Trump just wanted to understand the rules better, in inverted commas.He just wanted to know what had caused Balligan to be suspended.It's all about understanding the rules.And it just so happens that there were others in his administration who also needed to understandthe rules better because after Trump's first involvement, as reported by the New York Times, reports have suggested there were multiple calls, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.Oh, is that a man who deals with money by any chance?

And Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House World Cup Task Force, who recruited lawyers to also assist with US soccer's appeal against the decision.So Infantino gets the call from the president and then finds, what, an entire task force on his back as well saying, we're just trying to understand it.And sure enough, on Sunday evening, they suddenly found another part of the disciplinary code, which is Article 27, which allowed them to, well, they haven't exactly destroy the red card, they've just kind of left it hanging for about a year over this poor guy's head.And actually, what's astonishing about this is from the sounds of it, none of the players, none of the US players even knew what was going on.They didn't know about the call.They didn't know the decision was up.

They thought they'd kind of come round to imagining that they weren't playing with their teammate, the sort of key USA striker, and suddenly he's back in and they're having to justify it, presumably, to every other team and all the other players that they meet now.

Look, everyone in the world of football tonight is going to want Belgium to give the US a mighty kicking, you know, to 4 -0, 5 -0, 6 -0.And I do feel sorry for the players, because I think it's put them in an invidious position, where they're suddenly the bad guys in the world of sport.And I would love to know what Mauricio Pochettino thinks about this, the US team manager, who, you know, formerly managed Paris Saint -Germain, managed my team Tottenham, and is a brilliant guy.Andhe's been put in a difficult position.Look, there were question marks about whether this was a soft, inverted commas, red card that had been delivered to Ballaghan.

Well, let the football authorities, let the referees decide.Oh, no, maybe we've gone too far and rescinded.That's happened before.But no, it's Donald Trump's intervention that has made the difference.And this belief that Donald Trump has that he has total impunity, total unfettered power that we now have as America celebrates its 250th birthday, and it's manifesting itself in the most unlikeliest of places, that we're now talking about this footballer that Donald Trump, I guarantee you had never heard of until last week, using it as the latest place where he can flex his muscles, and he can make other people bow to his will.And I just think that's going to turn everyone against the United States.

as a result, the football team, as a result of all of this.

Yeah, I mean, without getting too west wing about it, this week, you know, the whole 250th anniversary is all about a celebration of throwing off the shackles of tyranny.It's about independence from tyrants, independence from kings, independence from sort of arbitrators of other people's lives.And suddenly, what do you have here?You have Trump deciding that he has to respond as emperor, that he has to respond as king.He is not just content with being the US president.He has to be the king of FIFA too.

And I mean, the ultimate irony, honestly, is to go back to Seth Blatter's tweets that came out this morning, a man who has not been, shall we say, known for his squeaky clean approach at the top of FIFA's governing body.But even Seth Blatter has tweeted, red cards are not overturned by political favors.calls.They are overturned by rules.I'm going to read this with a straight face.They are overturned by rules, evidence and independent bodies.

If a US president intervenes with the FIFA president and a player is suddenly cleared before a World Cup knockout match, the question is unavoidable.Quo vadis, FIFA.I mean, is Sepp Blatter saying there are limits to which even I would not have gone?That is That is from somebody who we thought had a pretty tarnished reputation, and he is now calling out his successor.

Well, look, even the head of European football, UEFA, have issued a statement.In similarly condemnatory terms, it was unprecedented, incomprehensible, and unjustifiable.This has happened apparently before.In 1962, Brazil had a player sent off.And there was a very strong sense then that there had been political interference to try and get that kind of but there was no that then in 1962, it wasn't a mandatory suspension after a red card.So it was very murky.

But this was this is in plain daylight, everyone is reporting it.I mean, you listed all the people that got involved.I've also seen reporting that the Department of Justice got involved.I mean, the DOJ ringing up Infantino and ringing up FIFA's lawyers and saying, you better do this, you better do this.And I just think it's terrible.

I mean, a real stench.Yeah.Do you remember the story that they told of the Argentina World Cup final in 1978 when apparently, and it's very hard to find actual documentary evidence of this, but apparently Kissinger and Argentina's President Videla sort of popped into the Peruvian changing room just before the match began and said, Peru, you guys won't make it through.You know, you're out anyway to all intents and purposes.Please, could you fix the match to Argentina?to win?

Now, Peru has denied that, the players have denied that conversation, but this was the sort of the theory that hung over that whole victory for Argentina as they hosted the World Cup.And I mean, what is amazing is you're absolutely right.That was behind closed doors.right?We never actually got to hear that from the horse's mouth.Now we are basically just enumerating the people who have been involved in helping overturn this decision, including Trump, who then actually tweeted out, truth socialed out this morning, oh, thank you for making the right decision.

He's not even pretending that this isn't about him.

Look, you've seen that MAGA video that was put out, where you see the referee brandishing the red card to Balogun, and then Balogun brandishing this card of his own with Donald Trump on it.Like, you know, Donald Trump out Trumps your red card.So screw you.Yeah, literally.And there you have it.I think this is you know, the World Cup, we had talked about all the things, as you say, Emily, that could have possibly gone wrong with this World Cup, and Infantino, you know, behaving like the emperor that he thinks he is, and Donald Trump, you know, putting a lot of people off.

And the World Cup was going really, really well.And there were big crowds.And you've just got this, I think it really tarnishes it.

It's interesting, isn't it?I mean, what happens if a Belgian player gets sent off tonight?Does the King of Belgium have to call Infantino?And if there is a sort of disagreement, I mean, I was listening to this Norwegian host of football pundits say, look, we started with the rules in football, then we brought on the referee, then we brought in VAR, and now we're at presidents.And where does this end with like the Supreme Court?It's like

the rules have just been ripped up in plain sight of this whole tournament.And I don't see how America can progress now.I mean, genuinely, what happens if they do beat Belgium?What happens if they are in the final?What happens if they win the tournament?And all anyone's actually thinking is, well, that was an outcome that wasn't even on the cards until the President intervened.

But Donald Trump would think that was worth it.You win at any cost.There are no rules.It's a dirty fight.You don't play by the Queensbury rules.You punch below the belt always.

And I think that that is what you're seeing in all of this.I mean, what's to stop Donald Trump ringing up?You know, if Belgium do win tonight, Donald Trump, I mean, it sounds preposterous, but the whole conversation we're having, Emily, is utterly preposterous.What's to stop him saying, well, it was an unfair match because the Belgians did this or the Belgians did that.I demand that the match should be replayed.And what's Infantino going to do then?

I mean, I'm sure he'd say no.But the fact that we can even have this conversation.Yeah, it's just the madness that has descended.I suppose the other thing we've got to consider now that England through to the quarterfinals and playing Norway.What happens to Lewis's relationship with his Norwegian wife?Where does Lewis Goodall stand in all of this?

It's big stuff.

I thought you were going to say something else.I thought you were going to say, if we need to have a red card rescinded, is it Keir Starmer or Andy Burnham who makes the phone call to Infantino?

I don't think they carry much clout.

Well, if over the weekend, you have been following all the latest revelations on Nigel Farage, the money he's been receiving from, amongst others, a convicted criminal, then the man behind some of this extraordinary reporting is Gabriel Pogrand.He's with us here.And it was the inside investigation.team at the Sunday Times which broke yesterday's story on the back we should say of the Guardian's excellent reporting on the Christopher Harbourne five million pound loan.Gabriel I know you're also fronting a podcast and it's called Posh George, the criminal behind Farage, so should we just get a little window into Posh George first of all?

Absolutely, I mean it's quite a difficult figure to pin down, which is by design rather than through accident.A US judge once described him as deceptive for subtly changing his name.It's spelt with two T's and two L's.He legally changed it to have one T, one L. This Cottrell.Cottrell.He flies on private jets under an alias George Coe.

So quite who George Cottrell is, is its own riddle.But to the extent we've been able to unravel some of his story, he come from an aristocratic family.His mother was the daughter of the third Baron Manton, and she dated the future King Charles in the 70s.The match was broken off, actually, but she posed nude for Penthouse magazine.So lots of colour in her life, lots of colour in his early life, because he grew up on Mustique, the Caribbean island.He was born in Gloucestershire, raised in a cottage in rural Worcestershire.

and was expelled from boarding school at Malvern College for his involvement in gambling.And at that point, the young George goes into Mayfair in the sort of grey zone of London finance, where Russian and Arab and English money co -mingle.And he becomes very conversant in the ways of offshore finance and how to move money around the world.And this leads him, I think the tender age of about 20, to participate in a conspiracy where money laundering services were being advertised on the dark web andsaid somebody got in touch To say I'm a drug dealer or we're a drug dealing syndicate Can you please help us launder hundreds of thousands of dollars a year?um and the person on the other end of the dark web says uh yes sure and let's meet at a las vegas hotel to discuss next steps the person who arrives is this blonde chubby aristocrat posh george who gives them detailed information about how they can launder the proceeds of drug dealing um and i'll just momentarily press pause there to say that after this happens He goes to, he returns to London, becomes very involved in Farage's inner circle.

He's a volunteer at UKIP.

Okay, so just take us to that because this extraordinarily sort of colourful young character has not at this point met Nigel Farage.What is the moment where they meet, where their lives become sort of entangled?

So he's got an uncle by marriage, Lord Hesketh, who's the former F1 racing owner and a UKIP peer.He was an early defector to UKIP and we think through that that he may have met Farage.

This is how long ago then we're talking?

This is around 2014 and he becomes the essential Farage whisperer so when Nigel wants a fag or he wants a pint or he needs a moment to just be on his own, or somebody needs to pull the chair from under the table when he's getting sat down for an interview.Like, Post George becomes that guy.

So we would all have seen him.I mean, sort of like the Gary to Selina's Veep.Exactly.

He's just everywhere.And he has this kind of uncanny ability to read and preempt Farage, which gives him this status as Nigel's man.He becomes deputy treasurer of UKIP in his 20s.the reason I said I was going to pause was because He's with Farage on the day of the referendum in 2016.They go get drunk and have lunch at a restaurant in Mayfair, awaiting the result.And then fast forward a few months, he's in America for the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, with Farage.

And on their way back, they're getting a connecting flight through Chicago, and suddenly a phalanx of federal agents turns up.to arrest Post George because, Post George is his nickname by the way, not my appellation, but he at that point learns that the drug dealers who had been corresponding with him, who he'd met, were actually undercover US agents.

Okay, so Farage is with the man who he's trusted for the best part of sort of three years at that point, when he's arrested, he's convicted of wire fraud amongst other things, but their relationship continues.And what is the money question that we're talking about now?

So you're right, so when he leaves prison, he says he's going to get involved with charity work and return to education.He doesn't do that.He moves to Montenegro and becomes involved in crypto gambling and in a crypto gambling platform, which we revealed on the weekend is implicated in potential criminality.So that's what he does.Farage has gone out there to visit him.But the thrust of our story on Sunday is that in the year preceding Farage's election, cultural bankrolled his operation from every everything from drivers and security to Personal staff to the man responsible for Rogers social media Forage one in Clacton pretty much two years ago this week so in the whole 12 months before that He was being bankrolled by the convicted criminal.

That's quite right and andaddition he also has since and prior to the election availed him of a townhouse he rents near Buckingham Palace.

So let me break this down Gabriel and I feel stupid asking this but which part of this is illegal or unparliamentary.What is rule breaking here about this arrangement?

So that's a great question and one we've examined from top to bottom, as you would expect us to.So I guess the ultimate objective of the Code of Conduct for MPs is to uphold democracy by maintaining the highest level of transparency.And then you get the small print on what that involves.And one of the bits of small print is that in the 12 months before one's election as an MP, You have to declare any interest, any registrable, any... financial or non -financial benefit.And what it says is that there is an exemption.This is one which Farage is relying on, so it's important.

There's an exemption for purely personal gifts.So that means a box of chocolates from husband to wife or a grandma's knitted jumper for you.I mean, they say...

What about an aunt leaving you money in a will?

Things like that.That's a perfect example.And then it says that if it is, it gives friends and relatives, family and relatives as the example.If it's not that, And a reasonable person would consider that your receipt of the gift relates in any way to your political activity.It says disclose it.And it says if you have any doubt, and it says you should think about the motive of the giver or the use to which the gift is to be put.

If there's any doubt, declare it.Declaring is not an admission of wrongdoing.It is the opposite.

It's a way of being transparent about what's going on.It's what we do.

And if you do it, then you're in no doubt that you're in compliance with the rules.

So he didn't declare any of it?

That's right, there's one gift he declared from Cottrell which was I think about £9 ,250.of support for Farage to, alongside his staff and security, attend a conference, a conservative conference in Belgium in April 24.That's the only disclosure he ever made about this period.

So if he didn't disclose it, how big a penalty is that potentially?I mean, is it just a perception of a lack of transparency or has he done something more wrong than that?

It's a great question.I suppose one matter which is worth reflecting on is who George is, because the real concern in relation to undeclared interest is there any intersection on the Venn diagram between the circle that we might call Cottrell's life and times and interests, and then Farage's circle as a politician capable of potentially in future giving effect to policy but also championing certain things.So George Cottrell is intimately involved in this platform called Tether .bet.It uses the cryptocurrency Tether, which is part owned by Christopher Harbour, the man behind the five million pound undisclosed donation.And he's involved in crypto, and he's presently seeking a pardon from US President Donald Trump.

Farage is, of course, close to Trump, and he has championed crypto.His party hasn't published legislation on a number of things, but it has this very detailed technicolor piece of proposed law about making Britain the crypto capital of the world, and Farage has lobbied the Bank of England in relation to crypto.So there's no imputation for me that George has asked Farage to do anything or that Farage has done anything for George but the question in relation to the rules is might a reasonable person consider that there's anything political within this gift and might one pose questions about what's going on over here so I think that's worth that's that's sort of worth setting out and you asked about how serious this could be the actual answer is this isn't a penal codeThere's no common law or legislation.It's Parliament's own system for policing itself.So the real question is, Lib Dems and Labour yesterday referred this matter to the Standards Commissioner, Daniel Greenberg.

If Daniel Greenberg investigates, he can propose sanctions which can then be endorsed, rather stamped or not, by Parliament.

Because he's already investigating Farage over the £5 million pound Harborne donation.Have you had any word that he will widen his investigation now?

I've got no word at all about that other than to say that it is in his hands as it were now and it I don't know if they would broaden it to include it or do something in parallel, but it does seem it falls into very similar territory.In some ways, the territory is actually similar, but it's also different in a subtle but significant way, which is that whereas the five million pound gift was just cash, this was support for activity, which in some instances does what I was going to say does seem to.It was squarely political.So, you know, the output on social media, this guy who Farage was Cottrell funded a guy who became Farage's TikTok manager.There's lots of clips we found, which we understand were produced by this chap, which, you know, were promoting Farage's positions on expressly political matters, immigration, European human rights law, wokery, but also at times promoting reform itself, of which Farage was at the time honorary president.

So your reporting today, which shows that George Cottrell had these reform cards, business cards, suggests that he can't use that claim of it being a gift from a family member or a gift from somebody very close?

Well I think it's an awkward one because I got given it by somebody who was at a semi -public event with Post George and yeah he passed them his card and it's got the reform logo and his name and Farage's email underneath it and I think we understand he's dished that outthe past in relation to fundraising for reform so it's...

And yet Generic yesterday, who is their what sort of treasury spokesman, shadow or something, whatever, was doing the rounds and he said there is pretty much nothing to see here.Farage himself's called it an establishment stitch -up.They've said no rule has really been broken.

No rule has been broken.It's an establishment stitch -up by a pro -Labour paper is essentially their position in relation to this.But on who Post George is, he says he's just a friend and he's got no role in reform.and I've heard that one before from the forerunner to reform.I remember learning that Posh George was raising money for the Brexit party and I asked him what he was up to years ago and they said well he's got no role.So they often said he's got no role and that helps, it happens to help, it might only happen to help, I'm not saying it's deliberate, but it certainly is convenient for the purpose of saying this wasn't a political gift or had nothing to do with politics, if he's just a friend.

But then we've got this piece of evidence from last year, which shows that he's presenting himself as being connected to reform, which is feels like a material piece of information.

Faraj has said he's considering legal action against you and your team.

Yes, he has.I must say, I'm an underwiser as to what that means.I can only say in terms of the core points of the story that Robert Jenrick, to whom you referred yesterday, essentially went on broadcast on the airwaves and confirmed every facet of the story.So I'm not sure what the legal action would mean.Maybe he's saying that we've accused him of breaking the rules when he didn't.I mean, that's not a matter that either of us can adjudicate on just yet.

So I'm not sure what that means at the moment.

There's a rule that the pollsters tend to use, which is that scandals, in sort of commas, has cut through when the stories are very simple to tell.Do you see or do you think this is having a political impact?Is that your sense it's having an actual impact on Farage's standing now or do you think people are in danger of getting lost in the weeds of the cryptos and the number and the Bank of England and the Montenegro.And is it one of is it one of those things where it's almost become too complicated for people to know how to respond to it?

Great question.I think just two things.I think you are right.In some ways, this is a complex story.It involves crypto Montenegro, Arizona, Illinois, federal prosecutors, reform Brexit Party UK.There are lots of parts.

In other ways, it's also simple.Farage was funded.Our headline was Farage funded by convicted criminal, and I suppose that is the essence of the story.As for the impact, I suppose there's a question of the impact within reform and then within the country.So there's clearly this odour or sense at the moment that people are asking questions about Farage's future and his position, and there's been a lot of column inches occupied by the idea that there is some sort of discussion there in reform, whereas that would have not been fathomable only recently I attribute that more to the five million pound donation than what I happen to have done with the Insight team and our podcast team a day or so ago.But it does seem like this will add to that and it was quite interesting that reform seemed, they seemed to be a bit reluctant to actually defend the underlying facts, they're just saying the rules weren't broken.

Do you think he's becoming the millstone then?

I don't know, but it's certainly an interesting time politically because of the fact that I've heard from reformed people who are just saying, like, we're not here to defend that stuff.You know, Robert Jenrick was asked, have you ever stayed at a criminal's house?Like, they're not there to be answering those questions.They believe we know what their position is in relation to things like migration and culture of the country and the economy.And, you know, obviously all politicians are there to give effect to that principle.

But they want to get back onto culture wars.

This is so not what they want to be talking about.And I think also, you know, as for the country, I feel like with scandals these days, it's sort of they don't matter until they do.And I don't know what this means, but there is an interesting added dimension to it, which I don't think ever applied, say, in the case of Keir Starmer's freebies, which is Farage is a amazing, amazing politician.He's a political animal and he will use this and wants to use it, it seems to illustrate his wider critique of the media and the political establishment.So, you know, whether that works, I mean, obviously...

What he calls it a stitch -up, he says.

Stitch -up.So he's using it, he wouldn't have wanted it to happen, but he is quite agile in, you know, portraying it in a certain way.And his bet is that people will side with him.And I guess it's a gamble we don't know.

There is something odd about things that aren't disclosed, which is, I mean, to state the obvious, we don't know how many more of these there might be.So Your work has exposed a whole brand new stream of stuff that we didn't know when we first learned about Harbour.It is possible that there is still more undisclosed donations or characters out there.that are part of who funds it, right?

Yeah, I mean, it's a kind of fascinating personal story in some ways, because Farage previously said, I think in 2017, that he was skint.

Yeah.You don't make money going into politics.

Exactly.And yet, and possibly for that reason, I don't know.He went through a separation.It's probably quite expensive spending your life on the campaign trail.I don't know.But it's clear that he has relied upon people in ways that are quite remarkable in terms of The extent with the five million and cultural support for various aspects of his life and also just some of the characters themselves It's not yeah, these aren't all conventional

Cottrell being a convicted criminal, he's just intrinsically, it's an interesting decision to decide to take money from that person.

I mean, it's so weird, right?Going back to the nicknames, which I know aren't yours, Posh George and apparently Posh George called Farage Daddy.

He said that, yeah.

So he's working for a man, you know, pulling his chair out and finding him a fag and all the rest of it, and he's paying him.

Well it is, it's an amazing relationship.I've struggled to characterise it and so do a number of my sources because some of them say it's sort of servant -master relationship, others say it's a friendship, others describe it as the ultimate aid, the fixer, the right -hand man for Farage.It probably is a combination of the above but...

But the money is going...

But you're quite right, he's separately his benefactor and yeah, I mean it is an amazing...I can't think, I personally can't think it would be like Cummings separately funding Boris Johnson.It's just a or Sue Gray also covering the cost of Starmer's armed guard when he goes from Kentish Town to Labour HQ.It is a difficult one to get one's head around and I don't really know how one could actually describe it.It's very difficult to get one's head around.

Well, before we go, whilst we're talking about undeclared financial woes in far -right parties, we should spare a thought for Marine Le Pen, who you might remember was first found guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds and was then handed a five -year ban on running for public office last spring.Now, tomorrow, The courts will finally decide whether to uphold her appeal or whether to confirm that ban.If she is banned, then you will see the darling of the French far right enter the race for the presidency.Jordan Bardella is set to inherit Marine Le Pen.crown.It's curious, isn't it, how these parties that always seem to speak for the little guy, speak for the left behind, keep on getting into trouble over their own financial greed.

We'll be back tomorrow.See you then.

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