NIGEL Farage has revealed the cost of his political ambition, saying he does not have a normal relationship with his family, who wished that he had never gone into politics.
The Ukip leader, in a campaign interview, described himself as the "Marmite" election candidate, dismissing David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband as "vanilla".
He accepted his ambition did not stretch to being Prime Minister, noting: "I don't think that's my role in life. I don't think I'd be very good at it either."
The MEP had two sons with first wife, Grainne Hayes, but the marriage broke down. He went on to marry German Kirsten Mehr and the couple had two daughters.
"I had been married once before and it didn't end very well but, then, that's life, isn't it? We have our ups and downs in life. Politics had begun to impinge and that did not help; of that there is no question at all."
Mr Farage described his second wife as "somebody who was completely honest, with no particular side, who said pretty frankly what she thought and how she saw things and I quite liked that".
He went on: "I mean to be honest with you, my whole family would rather I had never gone into politics; I'd stayed doing what I was doing. I can't even pretend to have a normal family relationship at this moment in time because I don't."
Pressed on whether he had any regrets, the party leader replied: "I've thought a lot about that question and, frankly, if you do have regrets and if those regrets bother you, then you are not living now are you?"
Mr Farage, who chose the White Cliffs of Dover as the location for the interview, saying it was symbolic of his beliefs, stressed: "I want to be friendly with our neighbours and if you live in a street, it's good to get on with the neighbours...but I don't want to be absorbed by them.
"If you control immigration sensibly and do it properly it can be a benefit to the country and it can enrich the culture too, no arguments about that."
Asked to explain how the culture had been enriched, he added: "Just look at the food. I am just about old enough to remember when it was awful and going out was actually quite difficult."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article