Claim 17f22889Checked 09 Jul 2026
Partly True/FalseOn the truth scale
“The corporal got the VC.”
Reasoning & Evidence09 Jul 2026
A corporal did receive the Victoria Cross in the 9 May 1915 fighting that Farage’s biography is referring to, but the wording is geographically muddled. The official VC record for Corporal James Upton says his VC action was at Rouges Bancs near Neuve Chapelle on 9 May 1915, and that it was part of the offensive supporting the French attack at Vimy Ridge; Canada’s official history separately identifies this as the Battle of Aubers Ridge, while the main Battle of Vimy Ridge was in 1917 and produced different VC recipients. So the core idea that ‘the corporal got the VC’ is true, but tying that VC directly to ‘Vimy Ridge’ is inaccurate. (everand.com) Sources: Michael Crick, *One Party After Another* (Everand excerpt); Victoria Cross and George Cross Association entry for James Upton; Government of Canada/Canadian Army official history on Aubers Ridge; Veterans Affairs Canada Battle of Vimy Ridge page.
From article
Well, you know, this is all rather silly, isn’t it, because, actually, calling somebody ‘a damp rag’ is a pretty minor form of abuse compared with what happens every Wednesday at Prime Minister’s Questions.
My family, both my mother’s side and my father’s, were very patriotic people. They believed in this country, they believed that the sacrifices they’d lived through through two world wars, awful though they were, had been worthwhile to keep our freedom and democracy. When I was small, you could never spend time with my grandparents without them talking about the past. One of my grandfathers was wounded in the Great War, in a very nasty action in which the corporal got the VC.
We were basically, on both sides, traditionally Conservative – but all mega-Thatcherite, because that was a breath of fresh air.
Sources opened+ 184 search hits considered
| [1] | vcgca.org |
| [2] | everand.com |