The leader of Ukip, Paul Nuttall, has come under renewed pressure after it emerged that his website published incorrect claims that he was a board member of a vocational training charity. An article published on his website in September 2009 claimed that Nuttall had accepted an invitation to join the board of the North West Training Council (NWTC).
Nuttall, standing as Ukip’s candidate in the Stoke Central byelection on Thursday, was quoted as saying: “As a former Hugh Baird College lecturer, I feel particularly strongly about vocational courses. If facilities like this existed for youngsters when I was at school, many of my classmates would have kept on the straight and narrow.
He later said: “I was very impressed by my visit to the NWTC and have nothing but praise for their contribution. They are doing a first-class job and I am thrilled at the honour of being a board member.”
However, the organisation’s chief executive, Paul Musa, said that, while Nuttall had visited the NWTC several years ago, he had never served on the board. “Mr Nuttall was never invited to become a board member of NWTC as this would need to be a directive of the NWTC board, who he never met,” he said in an email. Nuttall’s name does not appear on any documentation filed by the NWTC with either Companies House or the Charity Commission.
A Ukip spokesman did not comment directly on the claim. A spokesman said in a statement: “The Guardian is clearly running a politically motivated campaign against Paul Nuttall. In our view, this shows how scared the Labour party must be of his electoral appeal.”
Victory in the byelection would make Nuttall Ukip’s first leader to be elected as a member of parliament. But his campaign has been set back by a number of damaging revelations. Last week Nuttall admitted during a live radio interview that claims made on his website that he had lost “close personal friends” in the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 were not true.
Nuttall’s website also originally claimed that he played football professionally for Tranmere Rovers, when in fact he only ever played for the youth side as an amateur. Nuttall has said that in both instances a press officer was responsible for the incorrect statements. The website has since been taken offline.
Nuttall’s LinkedIn page claimed until last year that he had been awarded a doctorate in history. It later emerged that he had started the course but subsequently dropped out. Nuttall at first said he did not know who had created the page, and later explained it as the work of an “overenthusiastic researcher”.
In a defiant speech to Ukip’s spring conference earlier on Friday, Nuttall insisted that he was the victim of a “smear campaign”. “Many of you will have seen noticed that I’ve had a bit of a difficult week. This is twofold, actually. Firstly, I take the blame for the fact that I failed to check what I put up on my website in my name. That is my fault and I apologise,” he said.
“But I do not apologise for what is a coordinated, cruel and almost evil smear campaign that has been directed at me. It is based on lies from sources who have not been named. It has been a tough week for me, but I will not allow it to break me and I will not allow them to break Ukip.”
