Nigel Farage disowns the entire 2010 Ukip manifesto

Nigel Farage has disowned the entire 2010 Ukip manifesto and said every party policy is under review.

Mr Farage said new policies would be “similar in flavour” to his past manifesto pledges which included bringing in a dress code for taxi drivers, repainting trains traditional colours and introducing a dress code for taxi drivers.

Speaking on BBC2's Daily Politics, Mr Farage said that he had not been in charge of the party when the 2010 manifesto was pulled together – although he had led the group between 2006 to 2009.

He added that because the party’s manifesto was almost 500 pages long for the last election there were “all sort of bits” of it that he “did not know.” However Mr Farage co-authored the foreword to the manifesto and was Ukip’s chief spokesman.

Quizzed on the BBC 2’s Daily Politics show on a party proposal to scrap Trident Mr Farage appeared confused and asked where the interviewer had got such a suggestion from.

When he was told it was on the Ukip website, he said: "When it comes to websites, I'm not the expert." Challenged over a compulsory dress code for taxi drivers, he said: "Do we? News to me.”

In response to another policy to require British trains to be repainted in traditional colours Mr Farage said: "Absolutely not, I have never read that, I have no idea what your talking about.”

He added: “Look, under the last leadership and in the 2010 election we managed to present a manifesto that was 486 pages long. So you can quote me all sorts of bits of it that I will not know. That's why I've said none of it stands today and we will launch it all after the European elections."

The 2010 manifesto has since been deleted from the Ukip website. A Ukip spokesman refused to provide a copy of the manifesto and said the document was no longer “relevant” and had been removed “months ago.”

Mr Farage was also branded “laughable” as he defended his arguments that women are “worth less” and do not face discrimination to City firms.

Louise Cooper, a chartered financial analyst and blogger, told Mr Farage that he was “talking out of his bottom” for saying women were not paid less because of discrimination by firms in the financial sector but instead because of the "lifestyle choice" some made by having a baby.

Mr Farage, who has two daughters Victoria, 13, and Isabelle, 8, said: “Pre-big bang, when I first worked in the city, it was a deeply sexist place - it really was. That’s all gone completely. I don’t believe - in the big banks, brokerage houses, Lloyds of London and everywhere else in the city - I do not believe that there is any discrimination against women at all.

Ms Cooper, herself a working mother, told Mr Farage: “For all the working mothers out there who are battling day to day, and I know lots of them in the City, who are discriminated against, who are paid less than their male colleagues, who are looked over for promotion, I say on behalf of them: shame on you. And I say double shame on you because you actually have daughters.

She added: “What kind of example are you setting to your daughters by saying what you said?"