Nigel Farage is undoubtedly the best media performer British politics has, and he has been for years. Why is this? Simply he can actually show emotion and answer questions honestly, in stark contrast to other frontliners who repeat their party HQ media briefings by rote.

There are clear advantages to this approach. He can laugh, he can be quick witted, he can sound authoritative. However the trick of letting emotions show can cause him to stumble when asked a question about something he is very obviously irritated or upset by. That was in full view at today's

To be fair to Nigel, he in his press conference speech. He addressed the issue head-on, albeit describing the explosive fallout as "a little bit of turbulence", which in comparative terms is like Stalin dismissing the Chernobyl meltdown as a hiccup.

Mr Farage continued: "We had become incredibly concerned about the behaviour of one of our MPs."

He then turned on the media, accusing all-but-one outlet of failing to report on widespread racism against the party's chairman Zia Yusuf.

He fumed: "Some of the online abuse and outright overt racism that has been showed against a senior member of this party, had it been showed towards any other ethnic minorities towards the Labour or Tory parties, everyone of you in this room would have reported it."

What viewers tuned into the live stream didn't see was how he continued tearing lumps out of us in the off-camera 'huddle' afterwards, where we were each afforded a question.

It is very clear he has no interest in further questioning about the party's recent split.

Asked by Beth Rigby of Sky News whether his supporters may be concerned about the party's behaviour towards Mr Lowe, he dismissed it as a fringe issue.

He hit back: "You know something, can you imagine - given the complaints that have been made against one of our MPs - if I'd not done anything about it yet had knowledge of allegations?"

On the racism against Mr Lowe he slammed: "If Diane Abbott received racist abuse it would be the top of your agenda.

"Because it's us you don't care! You don't care!"

Probed by Ms Rigby where the abuse is coming from, he argued: "You're the journalist, you find out."

He almost came to blows with the Guardian, who asked about the abuse against Zia Yusuf, before once again being slammed by Mr Farage for failing to report on it.

However the journalist claimed they had reported on it, prompting Mr Farage to hit back: "I haven't noticed."

When the journalist offered to send him the article, the Reform leader reacted: "You better!"

I'm very sympathetic to Nigel. It's clear there are issues and an inquiry is the right way to adjudicate on the current he said/she said situation between Mr Yusuf and Mr Lowe.

But I do think he needn't be quite so overtly hostile to questions that may not be what he wants to talk about. Other than that he should be congratulated for another impressive news-grabbing press conference.