‘What can we do for people like the leader of Reform UK who evidently can’t add up?’
Nigel Farage was ridiculed for his questionable math skills once again during Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon.
Adam Thompson MP, a former physics teacher and engineering lecturer, asked Angela Rayner, who stood in for Keir Starmer while he returned from the G7 summit in Canada, what the government is doing to help adults learn maths after school.
Delivering his punch line, he said he came across an “awful case” of “a 61-year-old man who believed he had counted up £7 billion of government spending, when there was really only £27 million.”
Prompting laughs across the Chamber, he said: “What can we do for people like the leader of Reform UK who evidently can’t add up?”.
Angela Rayner responded with: “My honourable friend highlights an important fact. Reform sums don’t add up.”
Thompson’s joke was a reference to the Reform UK leader claiming that he would save £7 billion by scrapping government diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) schemes.
In reality, the civil service spent just £27.1 million on DEI initiatives in 2022/23. Nowhere near the £7 billion he claimed…
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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