Nigel Farage has got a 10th job, making £25,000 (AU$52,000) as a commentator for the Rupert Murdoch-backed Sky News Australia, with the MP telling the channel that Britain is “going downhill”.
The Reform UK leader has a portfolio of gigs on top of his role as an MP, including a £280,000 job advertising gold bullion, a £4,000-a-month column for the Daily Telegraph and presenting for GB News, which has paid him more than £330,000 since July.
His other jobs include giving speeches, social media work on Google, X and Meta, and selling personalised videos on Cameo, which has made him £125,000 since the election. In total, he is approaching £900,000 in outside earnings.
Farage has provided commentary to the Australian news channel and gave a video interview over lunch with Peta Credlin, a former chief of staff to Tony Abbott, a former prime minister of Australia.
“We are going downhill. We are in economic decline. People are getting poorer. We’re in societal decline. We can shoplift now up to £200 and no one comes after you. Knife crime off the charts,” he told Sky News Australia. He also described the UK chancellor, Rachel Reeves, as looking as if she was going to a family funeral every day and accused her and the government of “talking us into recession”.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has in turn criticised Farage for pushing a “miserabilist, declinist” vision of Britain, arguing it is time to start fighting a battle of ideas against the rightwing populists.
Farage’s role was revealed in the new MPs’ register of interests. Sky News Australia is owned by News Corp, with 41% of the company’s votes controlled by the Murdoch family with a 14% stake in the company. The family shares are held in a trust controlled by Rupert Murdoch.
A Farage spokesperson said the Reform leader had been a commentator on the channel for years. The £25,368 payment was made to Farage in February for 19 hours of work “over several months”, they said.
The register also showed a new set of freebies accepted by MPs, including Reeves, who registered tickets to the National Theatre worth £276 for December and another £265 for tickets and dinner from March last year.
Reeves has recently said she will not accept freebies in future, after a row over her decision to take tickets to a sought-after Sabrina Carpenter concert over Christmas.
However, a string of other MPs appeared to be happy to continue to take hospitality, despite a public outcry about politicians getting tickets for free that are not available to the public.
Others to accept freebies included the Labour MPs Sarah Coombes, Steve Race and James Frith, who took £3,000 of tickets and hospitality for the Brit awards.
The Labour MP Grahame Morris and Tory MP Kevin Hollinrake each took £450 of tickets to Cheltenham horse racing, while the Lib Dem MP Paul Kohler took six tickets worth £1,700 to a Fulham v Crystal Palace match.
Keir Starmer also accepted box tickets to watch Arsenal, the eighth time he has taken football hospitality since the election. He has justified the decision on the grounds that he has a season ticket but it is more difficult to sit in the stands now he is prime minister because of his security requirements.
Stuart Andrew, the shadow culture secretary, accepted two tickets worth £4,000 in total to the Baftas, as well as two tickets worth £900 to the Carabao Cup final, and the shadow sports minister Louie French took tickets to the same cup final and to Cheltenham racing.
Helen Grant, a Tory MP and former minister, accepted tickets to the England v Latvia World Cup qualifying match at Wembley stadium valued at £494.
