Office for Students chair didn’t know he was sharing platform with far-right journalist

James Wharton says he didn't know Hungarian talkshow host Zsolt Bayer was speaking at rightwing event

The chair of England's university regulator, who was criticised for participating in a conference in Hungary on the same platform as a notorious far-right journalist accused of antisemitism, has said he did not know who he was appearing alongside.

James Wharton, chair of the Office for Students (OfS), addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac) via a video message last Friday, on the same day as Zsolt Bayer, a talkshow host who has called Jews stinking excrement", referred to Roma as animals", and used racial epithets to describe Black people.