Nigel Farage Talks "Assassination Attempt"

8 January 2016, 09:28 | Updated: 15 September 2016, 14:33

Nigel Farage has insisted he never claimed he was the subject of an assassination attempt when he was involved in a car accident.

The Ukip leader had stated that his car had been tampered with after a wheel fell off as he was driving through France.

That has since been questioned and a caller to Phone Farage on LBC asked why he decided it was an assassination attempt and not a mechanical failure.

He said he "made a terrible, terrible mistake" in talking to journalists about the incident.

He says he was contacted by the Mail On Sunday asking him about a car accident he was involved, on a French motorway.

"I should have just have said no comment and put the phone down. I took the view that as they were going to run it anyway we would try and get it factually right."

"I did give them a few bits and bobs of information, that it appeared to have been tampered with. That then turns, in a Sunday newspaper, into an assassination attempt, I never said anything of the kind,  and now the speculation as to what the police say or what they didn't say."

"My view is whether it was deliberately tampered with or not, what happened, happened and I just want to get on with my life."

That is not exactly what he told LBC on Sunday, the day that the story broke.

Yesterday, Mr Farage had told LBC: "Someone clearly had loosened the wing nuts on all four of the tires of my car, which lead to a slightly unfortunate incident with the wheel coming off, and it wasn't very nice.   

"It looks to me like someone meddled with the car."