Sandi Toksvig compares Nigel Farage to Adolf Hitler
Veteran broadcaster Sandi Toksvig has said she “hated” the UKIP leader whilst speaking at this year’s Hay festival.
Out comedian Toksvig was attending the festival to discuss her plans to create a new political party for women’s equality.
She appeared at the festival at the weekend to explain her reasons for entering politics, and her plans to ensure women are treated equally to men.
Ms Toksvig announced last month that she planned to quit her role on Radio 4′s The News Quiz in order to focus on launching the Women’s Equality Party.
Discussing the current state of UK politics, she claimed that the current political system is “broken beyond repair” and attacked many “women’s manifestos” that were offered up during the general election, particularly Labour’s “pink bus”, which she said would have “Pankhurst spinning in her grave”.
However, she saved the majority of her criticism for Ukip leader Mr Farage. She told the audience, “I watched the count for South Thanet and I found myself cheering for the Tory candidate.”
“I hate Farage for that, I really do. He made me cheer a Tory, the bastard.”
She then joked about what Farage and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler share in common, referring to the Ukip leader’s previous battle with cancer. She said: “Farage kept having pictures of him defaced with Hitler moustaches.
“I mean he’s not really like Hitler. Okay, he has a German wife, he hates foreigners, he only has one testicle and he was defeated.”
Toksvig also spoke out about her experience with trolls since she announced her political plans, saying she had experienced a great deal of abuse.
“Trolls have already come out, and so therefore I must be mad, because that is the world we live in,” she told the festival.
“But I refuse to live my life on the sidelines with a vague feeling of regret. I want to grab life by the throat, even if every time you raise your head above the parapet somebody tries to shoot you down.”
The Women’s Equality party plans to field candidates in the 2020 general election.
Ms Toksvig converted her civil partnership with wife Debbie to a marriage in December – in their third wedding ceremony to date.
