Nigel Farage Speaks To Mike

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Search Lloyd's ways to invest today. Capital at risk. ISA rules apply and are subject to change. Nigel Farage is going to be here later on because we're going to be talking about local elections. We spoke to Kenny Badenock last week. We're hoping to speak to that plonker from the Lib Dems, whose name I can't remember. Oh yeah, Ed Davey, that's him. And also we've actually asked Keir Starmer to come on, believe it or not.

um so far he's not very willing strangely uh peter plexley's here very good morning sir great to see you welcome back from your uh mission abroad thank you very much yes nearly three weeks in botswana in southern africa what was the food like there I got used to it eventually. Did you? Yeah. It all came as a bit of a shock. During the day, we'd have canteen food. Right. And it was very much local. Botswana's very proud of its beef. What's the local dish? Well, when we queue up...

at lunch time there'd generally be rice right or there'd maybe be pasta okay some form of vegetable yeah and then chicken or beef like a stew that kind of thing yes kind of um the chicken obviously was all on the bone yeah um and i it was a bit of a shock to the old palette to start with but by the second week i was into it and um needed plenty of fuel on board because they were long challenging days yeah and um yeah i ended up

like thoroughly enjoying it and it was a it was one heck of an experience yeah excellent stuff right well listen back to the world of the the uh what what i was going to call with reality but it's the first of april and as i say normally you would expect people to be performing

jokes we don't do april fool's jokes on this show we just don't it's just boring it's ridiculous it's repetitive it's the sort of thing that public school boys do so the guardian's probably got a story somewhere about some april fool and the independent will probably have it as well but we're not doing it here because the stories frightening for awful april are absolutely awful you know council tax is up

water rates are up uh basically you know everything energy prices are up food prices are up there's nothing that's going down car tax is up you probably doubled uh on your car from what it was last year um and on page four of the daily mail this morning uh hospitality is absolutely dreading.

what is going to happen over the course of the next few weeks and months because they're worried that people are going to go out of business. Well, I shall park my very well thought out April Fool's gag that I was going to perform on you and the audience this morning then because that's a very stern...

Yeah, I don't care. Honestly, I don't do April Fool. I just don't think it's worth doing. Honestly. It would have been hysterical. Okay. Not to worry. Moving on. Save it for plank of the week. You know, maybe it'll work for there. But hospitality braces for 3.4 billion pounds.

over here from national insurance and wage rises which is basically going to mean an awful lot of pubs restaurants other hospitality businesses are going to go out of business and it's today yeah that the national insurance hike takes effect it is and it is going to be utterly crippling yeah for so many businesses and if you look i love a pub yeah i've done all my life sadly of course shrinking numbers

and this national insurance hike and the minimum wage hike is not going to help and of course the face of pubs is changing so much how they do their business try finding a pub

down south, where you can walk in with a few pound notes in your pocket, 10 or 20 pounds, and order a pint over the bar. It's becoming a thing of the past. And so many... kind of government initiatives laws rules call them what you will are hitting the very fabric of britain which is the local boozer yeah and consequently they're just dying and disappearing

yeah well i mean i found a situation i don't find it so hard to spend actual cash money but what i do find astonishing in london is that you find yourself standing uh at a bar and people going you know you can't stand there

And you go, what do you mean you can't stand there? Well, there's a queue. You've got to stand behind the guy who's standing, waiting to be served. And in fact, this happened to me and my boss on Thursday. We were in a pub not far from here. And this guy asked us to move away from the bar.

I said, no, this is where I'm standing. I bought my drink. I'm standing here. And he's like, well, people can't get past you to order. And I said, well, that's their problem. They've got to get around me. That's what happens. That's the way bars work. You stand there. A guy goes around to the right of you, or he comes in between you. how it works.

Well, of course, unfortunately, in recent years, the role of bar staff has been degraded. Yes. Back in the day, the governor of any pub you would walk into or his staff would know who was next to be served. Right. You didn't have to form a queue. The brilliant bar staff knew it. They just saw you and went, you're next. Exactly.

absolutely yeah and if you happen to move move up to the bar and somebody was already waiting and by a mistake they came to you of course good british manager you go no excuse me yeah he's before me yeah exactly right yeah you didn't need to have

rules you didn't need to have it written down it's like our constitution you didn't need somebody to say oh no uh you've got to refer to this list of things that i've got to do here which is which is the country we are now in let's talk about uh deportations let's talk about migrants

of the sun today has got soft touch uk taking us for fools basically migrants are boasting about being now put up into taxpayer funded hotels as bills paid by millions of brits rocket two men posted a tiktok video with albanian captions in a room after paying three thousand pounds across the channel let's have a look at what keir starmer says about people smugglers my message to people smugglers is this

We're breaking your business model and leaving you nowhere to hide. We're working with law enforcement partners across the world to freeze your assets, to ban your travel. and put you behind bars. When I was this country's chief prosecutor, I locked up terrorists who plotted to blow up planes across the Atlantic. Now I'm going after the criminals who put people on small boats across the channel. We're boosting enforcement with a new border security command. We're giving the police more power.

to stop smugglers in their tracks and we're making sure no one can profit from this vile trade since the election this government has returned over 20 000 people who have no right to be here and we aren't going to stop returns will continue to increase my plan for change will save lives secure our borders and smash the gangs

for good yeah who do you think he's talking to i see he's doing his bit for net zero there by the way by not putting the lights on uh sitting there in the dark uh well done ed milliband will be very pleased for you does he realize that actually people who run what you might regard as human trafficking rings smuggling gangs you know cocaine running organizations aren't actually that bothered when you tell them that you're coming after them they're breaking the law

because they already know that. This government has smashed more avocados than it has gained. Yeah, seriously. Right? I wouldn't even bet that he could do that, to be honest. No. And I just have to say, when he talks about... What a crap. When he talks about prosecuting people that... wanting to bring down our plans. A great mate of mine.

I was working for the security services on a surveillance team and he followed the suspect and consequently my mate identified the bomb factory in East London where they were making all those things and it remains a matter of great pride that he's my mate. did save literally thousands of lives by doing his job brilliantly absolutely that day all those years ago but anyway

Back to blah, blah, blah, Starmer, right? It's the same old nonsense. He frightens no one. How's he going to make sure that no one profits from this vile abuse? How's he going to do that? Yeah, exactly. It's just complete nonsense. Rubbish. And when he talked about, not in that clip, but in other clips about when he prosecuted the war on drugs. Oh, yeah. Well, how did that end up? Yeah. A war that cannot and will not ever be won. Right.

and the the gang sing it's just i i feel the frustration and the irritation and i think there's people out there shouting at their radios or if they're watching online this morning because this illegal migration problem is not going away and it's ludicrous. Why can governments not do something about rigid inflatable boats, dinghies, that are coming across the English Channel? Why can they not stop that? Because they don't want to, is the straight answer. Because they don't know...

how they can say that they're doing it without upsetting a few people that they like to have dinner with let's have a look at what number 10 have said about deportations because i'm going to come back to you on this one and say to you that this number of deportations they keep claiming is like you know higher than ever is the same number they gave us about three months ago. Check it out.

it's all absolute cobblers i'm sorry i mean it's it's performative nonsense right they're claiming that they've got rid of 19 000 people but it's the same figure that they gave us three months ago uh it's the same thing they keep repeating so they're not actually continuing to deport people

and of those 19 000 people only less than 4 000 of them are foreign criminals the rest of them are people who've volunteered to go back who may or may not have been even been paid to go back so the whole thing is a crock of bs i'm afraid if it was four flights an hour yeah of all those foreign criminals banged up in our prisons

then I might say fair play. Yeah, good on you. You're rounding some people up off the streets of London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford, Rochdale, Blackburn, you know, Glasgow, Edinburgh. Great.

absolutely go for it and keep the list going and they were handcuffed behind their backs and they were being marched onto planes they had no right to be here yeah they'd come in foreign having their heads shaved like they do in el salvador yeah they'd come in boats like yesterday yeah you know what i mean right and if all those

being frog-marched straight onto planes and flown to goodness knows where as long as it wasn't in the UK, then I'd go, credit where it's due. But it isn't that. No, it's not that. It's just not that at all.

and there's more people in fact coming than ever and he said yesterday they had this ridiculous migrant summit of all of these you know sort of you know home secretaries from around the world who came to london for this meeting which lasted about 15 minutes and they basically said you know we are absolutely

absolutely ratcheting up our you know uh our belief in what we're doing we are deporting more people than ever uh it's beginning to work it's not beginning to work at all there's more people have come here 6 000 people have come here this year alone which is 40 up on what it was

was last year so i mean they're lying to us i'm sorry i bet the buffet was lovely i'm sure it was really good yeah down down the street here's the rising average annual household family bills right broadband bills this is up on average since today has begun on April 1st. Broadband bills up 36%. Phone bills up... Sorry, £36. Phone bills up £46. TV licence has gone up by £5. Nursery fees, if you happen to have kids in nursery, up £756. Energy bills up £111.

Tax up £109. Water bills up £123. Car tax doubles for whatever car you've got, unless you've got an electric car, in which case it's £10. It needs to be nothing, but next year it's going to be more. And if you've got a Tesla, you're going to be paying £100.

and hundreds of pounds as well. The whole thing is at four and a half thousand pounds. The sun is saying basically... families in britain are facing four and a half thousand pound jump in bills from today as living standards are squeezed i mean that's the reality that's the april fool's joke ladies and gentlemen that's the joke that they're perpetrating on the good people of this country absolute scumbags

And we haven't even gone anywhere near the cost of things in the supermarket, for example. And now if we rewind... three or four years, when we had rampant inflation at 11%. Yes. If a government turns around and says, well, we've got inflation down to 2%, that is still 2% of what now is 120% of what it was... years ago exactly so it's extortionate and everything is so shockingly expensive whatever you're going for yeah putting petrol in the car going for a haircut right

Buy a sandwich. Go for a curry now. Go to work. It costs hundreds of pounds. It used to cost like 50 quid to go for a curry on a Friday night. It's now costing you in excess of 100 quid for two people. It's shockingly expensive. Everything. But everything.

is expensive yeah wages are squeezed yeah people are losing their jobs yeah this country i'm afraid is a mess it's on its knees isn't it it really is and we need to bring it up from its knees i still believe as i say all the time you know as much as i wrestle and rail against these horrible horrible ghastly people in government we are still a great country we are still capable of saving it

we've got to get them out we've got to get them out in order to renew this place that we call home and there has to be a huge mindset shift yeah in public services for example yeah and we're going to get on to talk about local councils and the like yeah where there is an absolute mission creep a very very intolerant dei

diversity, equality and inclusion stuff. It's like a mafia has taken hold of so much of the public services and private companies. And these are not necessarily party political people. These are people who run the councils as their job. civil servants basically who are paid in excess of six figures to run councils basically into the ground.

And they are woke and liberal and leftist and intolerant and nasty. And well paid. Yes, and woe betide anybody who wants to stand up to them. And we frequently see articles in the newspapers about people who have done exactly... that and find themselves being pilloried punished and ostracized as a result because say for example you don't want your school teaching a certain particular faith or some certain sex ideology and all that kind of nonsense stand up to it

and down they come on you like a ton of bricks. This country needs a fundamental reset. We need to get rid of the plague of laziness, which... absolutely pollutes so much of the public services and local council employees and i hear examples of this crippling rampant unforgivable laziness where people go into

the civil service, local council employees, and they're in it for what they can get, not what they can give, not how they can make a difference, not how they can serve the public, just what they can take, take, take. And it's endemic. throughout the country we need a reset we need a nation builder from somewhere who's going to stand up and say this was a once great nation we can get it back to what it was but we need a reset Cut waste. Cut laziness. Do your job. Have some pride. Earn your money.

Put your shoulders back. Put your chest out. Be British. And let's do it for this country. That's a very, very good message. That's the best message I've heard for April the 1st. That's exactly how we're going to go forward. It's all for April. People's taxes are going up. People's bills are going up.

up all the way and we're going to talk about the police in a minute but let's get a voice note from tony on that subject Morning Mike it's Tony from Nottingham and I spoke to you before my next police officer and I just wanted to reassure you about the police because it turns out that looking on the website Leicestershire police have got sustainability officers that are planting trees

to offset their carbon footprint. So I just find that very reassuring and I hope you could share it with your listeners. Keep it the good work. Thank you. On DAB Plus. On YouTube. On your mobile. And on your side. This is Talk. Let's go straight to Nigel Farage who joins me now on the campaign trail. Of course, we've got local elections underway. We'll be talking to him about that. Nigel, very good morning to you. Good morning. I've asked the question this morning.

We feel as though in this country, I think, that we've had our country stolen from us, Nigel. I don't know if you were listening earlier, but we've discovered all of this ridiculous nonsense about sustainability from the police, from the fire brigade, from the ambulance service, indeed.

Yeah, I mean, I'm touring the country at the moment. I was in Kent yesterday. I'm in Cambridgeshire today. I'm in Northamptonshire tomorrow in the run-up to... first of may elections um and what i'm seeing because you know we always talk about national government we don't talk much about local government but it's important they have budgets of billions of pounds every year and you know they run the roads and you know social care etc

And this sort of disease that you're talking about, it runs through literally everything. Climate change, lunacy. anyone that dares to say, well, is this really... I mean, Kent, for example, in 2019, declared a climate emergency. Well, what on earth is that going to do with fixing potholes? You know, one of the other madnesses...

that we see right throughout the private sector is, for example, I'm going to Cambridge here. I'm on the way there now. They've got 4,000 staff that work for Cambridge County Council. 80% of them are hybrid. or flexible workers. Do you know what that means? Well, it means they don't go in office, right? That's all. That's right. That's right. That's right. We've allowed this lunacy to take over, and we wonder why, for ever more taxes that we're paying...

at national level and local level, our services are going down the drain. So, I mean, the whole thing, the whole thing has gone wrong. We know that the virus of Marxism is alive and well, but what we also know is the absolute... absolute cowardice of so-called conservatives in this country over the last 14 years to allow all of this to happen.

It's incredible. And as if that wasn't bad enough, we'll talk about the broken borders as well. The Sun's got a piece on the front page this morning of basically Albanian crooks coming to this country and taking the mickey out of it, sending Albanian friends...

of theirs, basically TikTok messages saying, you know, Keir, you're such a soft touch. We're staying in a Swiss hotel. We've got a flat screen telly. It's all brilliant. You know, I mean, Keir Starmer had the goal yesterday to have a summit on this and say that basically we're cracking it we're getting on with it we're actually reducing the numbers they're not I've been posting TikTok videos for five years five years I've been putting this stuff out

And in the early days, it was very difficult to get listened to. Now I'm very pleased the sun put it on the front page. Yeah, we're literally being taken for mugs. We've been walked all over. And all that Starmer was doing yesterday, I mean, you know, to say, you know, I understand why you're angry at illegal immigration. No, Prime Minister, we're angry at you for your empty promises. Smash the gangs, all he's smashed.

of the Tories' records for the numbers illegally crossing the Channel. And let me give you one more example of the utter lunacy we're living through. So yesterday, I went to visit a British-owned haulage company. He's got...

a big fleet of lorries, and he's moving goods back and forth. So he comes back last year. They get the lorry back to the depot for unloading, a lot of transit, and they find a young... illegal migrant has stowed away in the hold right they do the right thing they call the police the police come arrest the guy for you know entering the country illegally and guess what the haulier having done his job got fined £10,000. Unbelievable. He should have got a reward. Yeah, exactly.

This is the thing. People have asked this question before. How is it that Hawleyers get fined, but then when RNLI or the Border Force bring people to Dover, which they do on a daily basis, and they're probably doing even as we speak, they get sort of applause. Well, even more significantly, I've taken, when I've been in the channel, I've taken video footage of the people on the tiller, right? Those that are guiding the boats. And we were promised.

that those that guide the boats over would get special treatment, would be prosecuted and imprisoned to stop other people doing it. To my knowledge, virtually none of them. Virtually none of them. We can identify who they are. We've got photographs of them. None of them. So, I mean, none of this is serious. And all that Starmer was doing yesterday was giving another 33 million quid to overseas organizations. There is about as much chance on the current course of smashing the gangs.

as there is of stopping the illegal drugs trade, which, by the way, no one even talks about in government. No one even talks about it. They've given up on that years and years ago. The only way you stop it, and we've got the model, Tony Abbott, the Australian Prime Minister, did it in 2012. you make it very clear that nobody that comes by boat will ever, ever be allowed to stay, will ever get permits that need to remain, will ever be allowed to qualify as a refugee.

And you do what David Blunkett used to do 20 years ago. You simply deport. And if you deport people who come, well, you know what? They won't pay the traffickers the money. It's dead simple, but the Tories couldn't do it. They put forward a Rwanda plan, which of course was... overruled by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. And Labour have nothing to offer. And I think, I think this issue of the votes, and by the way, we're at record numbers so far this year.

I think the boats issue is going to do the Labour government as much harm as it did the Conservatives. Yeah, I think so, too. And the rhetoric, though, is kind of sickening, isn't it? Because Keir Starmer, you know, talks about rolling up his sleeves and getting on with it. And if you come to this country, you won't be, if you don't belong here, you'll be kicked out. They're using the same figure that they use.

several months ago in terms of those they've deported, most of whom wanted to go anyway. You know, it's a con job, isn't it? It's a total con job. In fact, everything about Labour is now a con job.

They really, with their campaigning now, are simply resorting to lies most of the time. Outright naked lies. But I don't think it's going to work. I don't think people believe them. And let's face it, I mean, today, April the 1st, this morning, I mean, every single person that works in retail, hospitality, runs a shop, runs a pub, runs a charity, runs a hospice, every single one of those people has been made an April fool of.

because it's a really big double whammy today. Increased minimum wage employers can live with, but they can't live with it alongside an extra tax of £1,000 a year for every employee they've got. This is a very bad, bleak day. And that's even before the employment rights legislation comes in, which says, if I employ you, Mike, and on day one I decide it made a mistake, you can sue me.

So things are not good. Yeah, they really are. And we can't get too specific about the local elections, but you're running people in all parts of it, I understand. There's no stone unturned, if you like, from any place that reform are running. What are you hoping for? Well, it's tough to tell because, you know, obviously these are first-past opposed elections. So, you know, is reform going to get a big percentage? Yes.

How many actual seats or wins in counties or mayoralters will that lead to? Frankly, is anybody's guess. Have you got a number in your mind as to what you would call a successful campaign? Well, I mean, I would say at least winning 200 council seats. Right. At least winning 200 council seats. But it's very tough to predict. You know, I am going to be on the road for the next month. I think local politics does matter.

As I said to you earlier in this call, they've got big budgets of millions of pounds. They're all massively in debt. They've mishandled things terribly. We've got over 3,000 staff working for county councils, paid over 100 grand a year, and they're not deliberate. So I'm out there doing my best.

And before we've had a bit of a rocky few weeks, haven't they, with the departure of Rupert Lowe, I've been asked by a few people to ask you a question about the way that some local reform groups have been treated. that they joined reform in various different parts of the country, but the professionalism or the professionalisation has meant that a lot of people have either stepped down as chairman of local groups or they've been asked to step down. I mean, is there a problem?

in local groups of reform? The problem is that we are vetting people to a much higher standard than the other political parties. And we're doing that because we ourselves will be held to a higher standard than everybody else.

because we're the challengers against establishment. So, for example, you know, we have somebody who's a candidate, and we go back through their social media history and find that they repeatedly use swear words. Well, we just can't have that. Or they express opinions that... frankly either are or could be interpreted as being extreme or deeply prejudiced so yes we have set a very high standard and yes there are some people out there who are unhappy but they've not passed vetting

But, you know, after the disaster that we had with some of those unbetted candidates at the last general election, you know, I made a pledge that I would professionalise the party. And, you know, there are some people that don't like it. But generally, look, you know, last year in the local elections...

reform fielded candidates in 12 percent of seats on may the 1st we will be at or down close to 100 we've set up 400 branches you know we are professionalizing it and it does come with a certain ruthlessness Sure. And I think many people will understand that. Let's talk about Marine Le Pen just before we let you go. I mean, extraordinary times yesterday in France where it seems to me, and I said this yesterday, they're doing a bit of a sort of Donald Trump lawfare on her, aren't they?

Yeah, I mean, she was going to win, wasn't she? She was going to win. I've been saying for years that she would win. She was clearly going to win. It's quite extraordinary. In all my 20 years in the European Parliament, the only European groups... The only European political parties that ever, ever, ever got accused of misusing EU funds were all the Eurosceptic ones. Funny that. Funny that, isn't it? Funny that. You know, they came after me.

They find me a sum of money because they said one of my employees was spending more time on party work than MEP work. I mean, look, this is a willful, deliberate attempt by... Court in France. And if you look at who the senior presiding judge was, you'll find that he's quite a good friend of President Macron's. Yeah, it's just outrageous. I mean, she clearly has an appeals process. And let's see where this goes. But yeah, it is overtly...

political in every way. And you interviewed her in 2017. We were just showing some pictures of that interview itself. And even Macron is saying this is going to backfire. This is going to make the people who vote for the party that she represents actually more convinced that they want them in power. Yeah, I mean, she does have a suitable successor in the shape of Jordan Bardella, who, you know, is a very, very decent politician.

You know, to be fair to Marine Le Pen, you know, OK, the Le Pen surname sort of rings a few alarm bells, although quite why the daughter should pay for the sins of the father, I'm not sure. But she has cleaned the party up. She has got rid of the extreme elements. She has made it electable, and this is her reward.

Yeah, exactly right. One final one. Britain's tariff deal, according to the Daily Telegraph this morning, may in fact redound on whether or not free speech is practiced in this country. I mean, the more that you look around the nation and see what happened in Hertfordshire... They see what's happening in all sorts of different areas of policing. You know, J.D. Vance was right, wasn't he? All I want to say is this. This is a tremendous wasted opportunity. We had a free trade deal with America.

on the table in 2017. Trump wanted to do a deal with us. He told me that himself. But of course, under the Conservatives, despite the Brexit vote, it took us years and years and years to leave the European Union. We missed the opportunity. And I'm afraid these tariffs are going to hurt. So I'm very unhappy at this squandered opportunity. Quite what the extent.

and Marco Rubio as well, of course, is being quoted in this. Quite what the extent of, unless you have free speech, you can't have free trade is. I don't think any of us quite know what's going on right now behind the scenes. But I think we'd really rather blown it with America, I'm afraid. I do think, I do think, if these tariffs are slapped on with everybody, I do think we have an opportunity to be the first country to get out of them for the obvious reasons that are...

Trade with America is roughly in balance. And, hey, you know what? They are the biggest foreign investor in Britain, and we're the biggest foreign investor in America. So we've got lots of mutual interest. It's bad news, but we can get out of it. Nigel Farage, thank you very much indeed. Nigel Farage MP there, Leader of Reform, talking about a great many things. Let's have a listen to what Angela Rayner has got to say. She's also, of course, organising the Labour Party local election campaign.

On the 1st of May, you have the opportunity to make sure that conservative councils who have let public services crumble and our streets filled with potholes are held to account. By electing Labour councillors and Labour mayors, we can work together to make sure that our plan for change is delivered right across the country with local people at its heart. Bring change. to your area. Bring change to Britain. Vote Labour on Thursday the 1st of May.

And of course, we spoke to Kevin Badenoch last Wednesday. We just spoke to Nigel Farage. We've asked for Labour to come on and talk to us about it. Whether they do, we shall see. And the Lib Dems as well, who are also, of course, running in all the local elections too. Let's get a voice there. And David? My water bill with Thames Water has gone up by over £200 per year, which is 43%. It appears I'm paying to pay off the debts of Thames Water. It's absolutely outrageous. Thanks, Mike.

It is extraordinary, isn't it? The amount of money that water companies are sucking out of your bank account is quite extraordinary. And also, we're not going to talk about just the water bills and the electricity bills and the council tax bills. We're also talking as well this week.

and all of this week, about the NHS and exactly what they're up to in government by telling us that the NHS waiting lists are coming down. This from Peter in Suffolk. Morning, Mike. My wife got a hospital appointment for 12.15am. Yes, AM. When she read it, it said... This isn't a real appointment. It was just an administrative action to get you in the system. Really?

I'd love to see that. If you can send that to us, I would really like to see that. And Rain Liverpool says, Morning Mike, I was diagnosed as having type 2 diabetes in January by the practice nurse. I haven't actually seen my GP for years. And yet each time I attend the surgery, the waiting room is empty.

It's very weird, isn't it? It's almost like there's this kind of shibboleth, this entire kind of organisation that doesn't really work, that doesn't really do what it says on the tin, but in fact parts of it are not even actually even there. Is there a phantom NHS working behind the scenes of the actual real NHS? Bits of it are working, a quarter of it maybe, but three quarters of it is doing absolutely bugger all. It's 21 minutes past eight. has broken Mike Graham on talk

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Talk It, your national disputation verification station. The home of common sense. This is Talk. Welcome back to Morning Glory. It's 8.24. I'm Mike Graham with you all the way through until 10 o'clock, of course. We're about to be joined by John O'Connell from the Taxpayers Alliance to talk about fat cats in the council because some of you are telling me about the council tax rises that you're having to put up with.

morning shazzy says mike my council tax bills have gone from 200 pounds to 249 pounds a month myself and my husband both work full-time in good jobs i don't know how the hell we're going to find this extra 50 quid uh all we seem to be doing is cutting back and rowing over bills this is sending

people over the edge and one from nick and kent says morning like southeast water has taken 99 pounds out of my bank account this morning usual direct debit was 37 i live on my own so how will i use 100 pounds worth of water every month that has more than wiped out my rise which i don't get until the end of this month and that's before the increase in my other bills so i'm now worse off absolutely incredible uh let's get a voice note from darren on gp appointments

Good morning, Mike. It's Darren from Carmarthenshire. Hope you're well. Just on the subject of the NHS, Mike, if I phone the NHS surgery, my doctor's surgery, Mike, of a morning i get greeted with a welsh speaker on the automated line which runs on and on for about 10 minutes and i can't speak a word of welsh mic so that's a complete waste of 10 minutes of my day to start things off and then i finally get um the English alternative, the English equivalent.

And funny enough, option two is if you're suffering from severe bleeding, Mike. So hopefully I haven't bled out by the time I come to that option and I can actually get through to speak to someone. But I'm not going to hold my breath.

Have a good day, Mike. Oh, for goodness sake. I mean, absolutely ridiculous. Absolutely unbelievable. 8.26. Let's talk to William Yarwood, who's Taxpayers Alliance Media Campaign Manager. William, very good to see you. Good to see you, Mike. How are you, mate? Very well. Very well indeed. We saw each other just a long time.

Not that long ago, actually. Yeah, a few Guinnesses in the... A few pints in the pub. Absolutely right. You've done a great story this morning. It's actually John O'Connell's piece that's in the Sun, page 10. How much is your council tax going up this week? Because you've discovered that...

3,906 council bosses receive more than £100,000 in remuneration. Yeah. And the cost of running councils is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah, and that's 26% more than the previous year, by the way, Mike.

And this is all the wild council tax goes up across England. I mean, I think the average bandy household is going to be facing about a five-point percentage rise in their council tax. But as you know, there are places around the country that are getting way, way more than that. I mean, we were in Windsor and Maidenhead very recently campaigning.

they wanted to raise it by 25%, which is an absolutely insane number. I mean, granted, Rainer said they could only have it by 8%, but that's still 8% more than they will otherwise be paying. And when I think about what are local people getting, are they getting... Potholes fixed. Are they getting their bins collected? No, they're paying more.

For less, frankly. And where all this money is going, I think it's going into the pockets of these backroom bosses. Yeah. And obviously what they're doing as well, and we know this, I think, something like 70% to 80% of all the money that you pay in Castle Sacks goes towards the salaries for these characters. and their pensions right because they've all got massive massive pensions and it used to be the case that you would pay

less money to these people because their pensions, their perks were great, but they now got the big salaries as well. Yeah, totally. I mean, one thing people have a go at us for at TPA is they say, oh, why are you including pensions in there? Why are you including compensation? Why are you including their bonuses? I think it's really important that...

Local taxpayers know how much they're being fleeced by their town hall bosses, because often the biggest pay packages they have are not actually in their salaries, it's hidden in their pension contributions. I mean, how on earth can local councils afford pension contributions of £300,000, £400,000, possibly...

even half a million at times, while local taxpayers don't even have access to these kind of gold-plated public sector pensions and have to deal with, you know, horrible roads with potholes in, you know, bins. I mean, you know about Birmingham. I mean, Birmingham's going on strike. I mean, Birmingham's already pretty full of... They pretty much declare the state of emergency. And interestingly, in our racist list, mate...

Birmingham didn't give us their accounts. Right. So what are they hiding? Oh, really? What are they hiding? Yeah, they're one of the councils that haven't given us their accounts, and they're one of the councils that went bankrupt as well. So I'd love to know what they're hiding. But yeah, the figures are quite astonishing. I mean, like, if you want to talk about just salary...

for a moment. There are 238 council employees on more than Keir Starber. I know. That is completely not as crazy. Here's the top five role of shame, if you like. Anne-Marie O'Donnell, Chief Exec Glasgow, 567,000. Chris Mills, Strategic Director, Castle Point, Essex, 565. Undisclosed Social Care, Brighton, 456. Amanda Skeet, Deputy Chief in Basildon, Essex, 379,000. Caroline Lacey, Chief Executive East Riding of York.

which is 347,000. Nice work if you can get it. Yeah, it totally is nice work. What do they do, these cheap executives? Yeah, that's the thing. So, one of the arguments made to me is that... oh, we need to pay these council bosses and we need to pay MPs and public servants more so that people can get... These high-quality people can be attracted to these jobs. Well, where are all high-quality people if these councils are running to the ground? Maybe you talk about Parliament more specifically.

He's getting a 2.8% pay rise. Is the country well run better? Obviously not. No. So, like, why on earth would I, should local taxpayers have to cough up, you know, hundreds of thousands of pounds in council tax in order so that a council boss could sit on a pretty pen? all the while their bins aren't collected, their bottles aren't fixed in. And actually, in reality, they're getting less for paying more. And that sums up modern Britain, doesn't it? It really does. You pay more tax.

You get less. You get less. And also, all of these companies, councils rather, that are going bankrupt and losing money and unable to manage their own budgets, they don't seem to ever get rid of anyone. No. I mean, they never have a sort of paring back of public employees, do they?

And that's our argument, Mike, basically. Instead of cutting down on frontline services, how about some of these council bosses look themselves in the mirror and realise that actually where all the money's going is to them, and actually they're not a good use of taxpayers' cash, and maybe some of them should actually quit their jobs if they actually know what was good for...

taxpayers, or at least not take insane bonuses, not take insane salaries, not take insane pension contributions, like I mentioned earlier, and put local taxpayers first. But yeah, it's good work if you can get it. And I mean, we do this paper every single year, and we cause a sting with it every single year. And yet...

every time we call every time we do a paper like this it gets worse you know so it's like they still think they can get away with it so i think this you know there's a room for central government to get involved there and say

Oi, you're not going to have pension contributions totalling more than, like, the average, you know, someone beyond their wildest dreams could have in the private sector. You know, you're not going to have salaries over 150k or get paid more than the Prime Minister when your council's in it. estate and you can't even collect bins properly. I think there needs to be a bit of more bullishness from central government in order to get involved.

I don't think we're going to see that, do you think? I don't think we are, no. The other thing that seems to pop up every now and again is the fact that they now have so many people working from home in blended working situations that there are actually, some of them, thinking of selling off council property.

Now, it seems to me that if that's council property that they sell, that they then feed the money back into their system, surely that's our money, isn't it? Because if we own a council building, then it belongs to the public, doesn't it? Yeah, totally. They should knock it off the council tax if they sell it.

Yeah, totally, but they won't, obviously. And also, when you talk about working from home, what about working from abroad? Loads of council staff work from abroad, they go to the beach, you know, they sip margaritas on the beach, all the while enjoying these pension costs.

contributions, these salaries, these bonuses, while ordinary taxpayers get fleeced. And quite frankly, Mike, it baffles me that these guys are able to get away with this. And I think there needs to be some genuine radical reform from the top in order to deal with this kind of stuff, because this lot isn't going to reform themselves.

Of course not. And of course, I presume if you work for the council, you get some help with paying your own council tax, do you? You probably don't have to pay what everybody else pays. Yeah, there was a bit of a scandal a while back where some Scottish councils apparently were just not expensive. and the countertax but just not paying it. Just not paying out to back pay it. But if they hadn't got found out, Mike...

They wouldn't have paid it. Of course not. Talking of Scotland, I don't want to get specific because obviously there were elections going on. But I got past a story the other day from one particular council up in Scotland where the councillors themselves, who are normally not paid... an awful lot of money they're relatively sort of on 20 000 here 30 000 there they're all getting a 40 pay rise

Which is extraordinary. Yeah. I'll pass that one on to you because you may want to look into it. It is extraordinary, but again, it's not something to be too surprised of because council bosses think they can get away with everything.

anything, because I think no one's talking about it, and there's no scrutiny. But we, the Taxpayers Alliance, have got dead eyes on this, you've got your eyes on this, you know, and the government needs to turn, specifically Andrew Reign, the Deputy PM, whose council, this is in a remit. She needs to do something about

this if she's interested in actually saving taxpayers money as you know labor say that they are whether you believe that or not another thing if they're interested in saving taxpayers money maybe they should look at the amount of council bosses that are filling these back rooms and wasting you know hundreds of thousands if not millions of pounds of taxpayers

cash every single year. All the while, ordinary taxpayers have to deal with rubbish in their streets. And, I mean, talk about bins and rubbish. What are people going to do? There's a fly tip, aren't there? And the streets are just going to look worse. So actually, you're actually making these areas look worse by not collecting your...

bins and by not putting the money into these bins because you're putting the money into your own back pocket. And it's the stuff that people care about. Yeah, totally. You can talk about international, you know, diplomacy and whether or not we're going to sell the Chagos Island. This is the stuff that people really do care about. Absolutely.

Good to see you. Thank you very much indeed. William Yarwood there from Taxpayers Alliance. Big piece in the paper today from John O'Connell, who's Chief Executive of Taxpayers Alliance, in the Sun. Get hold of it. It's page 10. 238 Town Hall, top brass. more than Keir Starmer. So why on earth are the services so bleeding awful? That's the question. It's 8.34. This is Talk. The vicarage of common virtue. This is Talk.

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T's and C's apply. Visit HiveHome.com. Tonight's Euro Millions jackpot is 14 million pounds. Now that calls for a dance. Do I have to? I hope you can limbo. That's it. With these moves, I might just hit the jackpot. Very good. Get that Euro Millions fee. We'll be right back. This Easter at M&S, you can choose from 12 different types of hot cross buns. There's the dippy egg one, a soft and rich cocoa bun with a white and yellow gooey chocolatey center. The luxury fruited hot cross bun packed with

plump currants, citrus peel and warming spices. And the extremely cheesy hot cross bun with glorious chunks of red Leicester and cheddar cheese. These are not just hot cross buns. These are M&S hot cross buns. subject to availability. This is talk. The place to find the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Critical judgment and laser-guided opinion. That is you. Get in the bin because you are one of the problems. This is talk.

Welcome back to Morning Glory 8.36. We've been talking about many of your experiences with the NHS. I've got this tweet from Wes Streeting. which he put out this morning. He says, I'm swapping Downey Street for Coronation Street, making a little cameo in a special episode that will air in July for the NHS's anniversary this year. Can you imagine? Are we all going to be out?

you know, clapping hands and hitting pots and pans together, waiting lists at Weatherfield General Hospital have fallen five months in a row thanks to our plan for change. Well, I would put this question to you, Wes Streety, and if you ever come on this show, I would put it to you in person.

sure that basically the Weatherfield General Hospital waiting lists are falling or are you just cancelling people's operations and moving them onto another list? Because that's what I'd like to know. Tommy Merseyside says, I got told by my GP years ago that they undertake appointments based on one

every six minutes so 10 per hour and the waiting room is always full i was told during covid they reduced this to four per hour to keep the waiting rooms less busy i don't believe they've gone back to the pre-covid schedule our waiting room is still always empty i think a lot of people

You can tell me that as well. We'll come back to that, of course. Let's talk about private schools, because Sarah Matthews is here, the head of Truro High School. It's a high school for girls, a private day and boarding school in Cornwall, because the story today is that...

Private schools in England have lost their charitable rate relief. They've already been hammered by having VAT added on to the price, which has meant that an awful lot of parents have moved their children out of private school into the state sector where there isn't really any room for them. Let's find out.

What's going on? Sarah, very good morning to you. Good morning. Thanks very much for joining us. What does this mean when you lose your charitable rate relief? Is this something else on top of the VAT? Yeah, absolutely. And that's not where it ends for the independent sector at the moment, actually. We've had quite a number of hits financially this year alone. So there's lots of business rates relief, which means that we'll have to pay.

more money there. There's the VAT, which has been added to fees. There's the national insurance contributions, of course, and the increase in minimum wage, which concertina's up through the staffing. We've had an extra 5% added to the teacher's pension.

contributions um and uh and that happened in year april so um many many many um financial hits i suppose on the independent sector yes and how has that affected your independent school as as is have you seen A lot of parents moving their children out because they can't afford it or has it affected some of the special needs cases? Yeah, so for us, we have a very, very strong family atmosphere at school. The girls are extremely happy. The parents are delighted with what we offer.

But what we've seen is that they are really, really, really stretched. I mean, we have the pandemic. Then there's cost of living crisis down here in Cornwall. Of course, salaries are a little bit lower than they are higher up the country. But people are. absolutely trying their best to stay with us but we have seen some move into the state sector absolutely and that's

We're trying to help everybody that we can, but there's only so much we can do because we weren't overcharging them to start with. That's what people don't seem to realise. Well, that is the problem, isn't it? A lot of people's perception, particularly in Whitehall, I would imagine, is that private schools are... of the sons and daughters of toffee-nosed aristocrats who are so wealthy that they've got a couple of castles knocking around. And it's really not like that at all, is it?

No, not at all. Speaking of the NHS, we've got people that really need the wraparound care. We do eight until six. So we've got the teachers of social workers, children of social workers, rather. We've got teachers, we've got doctors, we've got nurses, we've got people who... who were working four jobs.

to pay the independent school fees. It is absolutely people that in 25% of my prep school, at least if not 30, have got an educational need. And they didn't feel that their children were receiving because of the funding. estate sector what they needed there so they are asking grandparents to help they're releasing equity we've got random relatives helping out to pay school fees because

They care so much that their children's needs, unfortunately, for whatever reason, are not being met in their previous settings. So are you having to put prices up? I mean, are you trying not to do that or are you having to do it?

All of us are desperately trying to do what we can. Just like, you know, for us, I know people say, oh, the independent sector has been putting prices up every year. With the pandemic and the following years, we kept our fee increases really low because we've been, we have reviewed. everything absolutely everything to make sure we can make as affordable as possible with the AT and all of the things that came this year of course we've had to put prices up technically we rolled back to absorb

some of the VAT, the maximum that we could. But as I say, what we've done is reduce the surplus, we've stopped any kind of capital development programme. And that way, parents who have been hit with this quite suddenly, some of them have got, you know, I was talking to a mum who's got four children in the independent sector. That's a huge increase overnight as far as they were concerned. Totally. And I mean, some schools have been able to offset.

some VAT as well on sort of going back a couple of years on capital projects or whatever. Have you been able to do any of that? Not very much, no. We're a lovely school down in Cornwall and we do little projects. You have to have spent quite a lot of money to do that. And I'm sure the big name schools perhaps that have been able to do the big projects, but there are a lot of.

independent schools. Mine's about an average size independent school. I've got about 400 girls here but that means that about half the independent sector is smaller than us. And these are schools that are spending money on roofs and boilers. And, you know, we've been able to do some projects like putting in a gallery and a prep school STEM lab, but not huge, great big builds.

So there's not a lot of offsetting that can actually go on at all. And in the southeast of England, there's been quite a few problems with people taking their kids out of private school because the state school system in southeast of England simply doesn't have room for them. And so we've had this ridiculous...

situation where councils are having to pay to send children to school outside of the borough that they were supposedly going to be in because they don't have any spaces and so it's costing them actually more money than they're bringing in on the VAT from the private school. Yeah, I've heard that before. We haven't had that problem down in Cornwall. But, you know, if I give you the example of my most recent joiner into year six and she has come out of a class of 38.

Now, no child in my opinion should be in a class of 38. We should be funding the state sector properly to meet the needs of these children so they're seen and they're visible and they can get the support that they need. the number of children that we welcome who have not been visible because of the class sizes. And let's not forget these parents who are paying independent school fees are also paying their tax usually.

So they're paying for a state school place already that they're not taking. You know, I'm a mum with two children in the independent sector, and I feel like I'm paying for my state school place and my independent place, and now I'm paying VAT. Yeah, I know. It's absolutely ridiculous. Sarah, good to talk to you.

Thank you very much indeed. Sarah Matthews there, the head of Truro High School. About 400 girls go there and they're struggling to keep their heads above the water because of the VAT tax rise that's been put on them by the government and also because the...

The idea of tax relief from the business of charitable rate relief has disappeared as well. You know, and we know why. We know that, you know, Rachel Reeves and her sister, who have talked about this many times, have said if they had their...

others if they could do it they would just do away with private schools altogether absolutely just get rid of them extraordinary this from Anne in Oakley it says my husband was given an appointment for an x-ray 15 miles from where we live on contacts in the hospital they said he wanted to go to the local hospital two miles away we would have to be put on a new waiting list and didn't know how long it would take what's happening

Well, there's obviously jiggery-pokery happening. There's obviously weird things happening with the waiting list. There's no doubt in my mind that somebody is massaging the figures. Let's talk to Catherine, who's in Oxfordshire. Hello, Catherine. Oh, hello, Mike. Good morning. I just would like to say, why has Rachel Reeves employed four of the top, most expensive barristers to...

push this VAT on private schools through. I mean, and they educate it. I mean, how hypocritical of her, right? Exactly. And then in another moment, she's saying, oh, we must account for the taxpayers' money. I think it's an absolute class war on people. Like, I went to private school, my parents worked hard, you know, ordinary people, and that's the same for everybody. My little grandson, he started...

Four, it's a fantastic little school he goes to. And in September, I said to my son, how much is it extra? And he said £500 on the VAT. But, you know, they both work hard. And, you know, it's not about... But the fact of the matter is this hypocritical, horrible government are just, you know...

so divisive. So divisive. And like you said, Rachel Reeves' sister, what would she do if she was Prime Minister? Oh, she'd completely get rid of private schools. I think it needs highlighting in the press. you're the only people on talk or, you know, another station who do this. But I think it needs looking into. Totally. You know, somebody needs to highlight it on the front pages of the papers saying, look. You know, it's not just rich and famous that go to these schools.

Anyway, that's all I needed to say. Thank you so much. Not at all, Catherine. Glad you could say it on our station. I'm very glad that you made the call. Thank you very much indeed. You can do the same. 0344 499 1000. You can also use that number to send us a WhatsApp voice note. which is what Daz has done. Morning, Mike. Did old Ange launch their local election campaign in Birmingham by any chance, standing on a 20-foot-high pile of rubbish with rats running all round her feet?

telling us to all vote Labour for change. Yeah, change is you get your city turned into a rubbish dump. Keep it up Mike. Cheers. Absolutely right. Daz, thank you very much indeed. Shall we have another look at Angela Rayner's National Renewal? National Renewal is something we all have to play our part in. It has to be fought for. It's no secret that I was born on a council estate. It's no secret because I'm proud of where I came from.

And I'm proud now to be working alongside our Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, to deliver the change our country needs. We're turning the page on 14 years of chaos and decline. And we're just getting started. Yeah, that's what everyone's worried about. You're just getting started. You haven't finished destroying the country yet. The home of common sense. This is talk.

Let's talk to Benedict Spence, political commentator here with us. Awful April Benedict, welcome to it. I'm just going to say there's no point in pretending that we can play some April Fool's jokes on people because the biggest joke is this government.

Well, exactly. And we're all sort of sitting there thinking, can we make light of this situation? And I suppose in many ways, that's the only thing that you can do, because it's so farcical, the state at which so many aspects of this country have got into. I mean, you've already highlighted so.

many in the course of however many minutes this morning uh you know be it migration be it the ambulance service i heard you just talking about that they're thinking are they going to tell us oh good news if you die in the back of one will compost you rather than

Exactly. That's exactly the sort of thing that they'd spin and say, isn't this good news? And we'd all have to sit here and go, what? I just want to see a doctor. Yeah. I just... basic functioning services is that too much to ask to which you're sort of told yes it is too much to ask however net zero very important it is a joke i mean we we started this only by chance because it came up in a conversation with peter blexley about leicestershire police

uh who are up in uh up in arms about all sorts of things it turns out they've got a tree planting policy uh never mind about arresting any criminals or actually solving any crimes the one thing they are doing is planting trees and you just think how did we get here how on earth did we get here I mean...

Do you know what? I'll be charitable. I'm all for trees. Trees are good things. But do you know what? Trees plant themselves. Trees are actually really good at it. Trees are fantastic at being able to find spots to grow themselves. You don't have to do it. You just have to get out of your way.

It's the very fact that these are the things that are prioritised, these are the things that are pushed, and that we are supposed to congratulate people. We're supposed to congratulate or be grateful to our authorities, to our police forces, to our fire services, to all of these people.

they turn around and the other thing of course is things like gender or racial equality they turn around and go ah yes crime stats are down however half of us are now one-legged women and you think What does that got to do with anything you know that this isn't what I pay my taxes for but the police will turn around and say but it's very important that we get our diversity targets done and yeah, but when you have governments and councils and leaders that are

so captured by this nonsense and it gives them an out and that's the thing it's always about finding excuses for not having to do things and again you picked up on it just there the idea that a government can turn around and say waiting times are down and you think ah but that's because you found a loophole. You found a way out.

by cancelling your appointments not by actually improving things that's all it is finding it out no and if you look at this all right we're going to play this little video uh about the deportations that have been going on from number 10. uh this came out yesterday i say it's a complete It's a falsehood, all of it. Have a look. plans for change

But basically, they're not doing anything at all. This figure of 20,000 or whatever it is, 19,000, that they've supposedly removed from the country has been a static figure for the best part of the last several months. And they've only added, I think, 4,000 to it in recent years. week so whatever they were doing they're not doing anymore

No, exactly. And when you sort of juxtapose it against the sheer numbers of people who have already come and who will continue to come, you see that it is really a drop in the ocean, that it's no real improvement at all, and it's no real deterrent at all. And I'm always frustrated when it comes to the subject of mass migration and deportations because people say either it's illegal to do it because of some foreign court says that you can't do it, which is a nonsense argument anyway.

All you get from the politicians, the standard response is, it's very difficult. It's a lot of hard work. It costs a lot of money. And you think... What is that attitude? That you can't do something that is right because it's difficult? So many governments of all stripes in this country have done this, not just here, in Europe, in the US as well.

Now Donald Trump is President of the United States, love him or hate him, do you know what? He's gone, it is hard work, and I'm at least going to try. And that's all that voters demand, is that their governments try. And ours aren't interested in that. Exactly right. I mean...

john f kennedy when he was president when he talks about the moon program and launching you know apollo missions to the moon said you know we do not do this because it is easy we do it because it is hard you know and that's kind of what you want your politicians to say isn't it i've just been

by the way, just to go off to the side for a minute, the London Fire Brigade's business case for sustainability. You might wish to know that the London Fire Brigade have got a plan for 2025, an objective to embed carbon zero principles. with particular focus on net zero by 2030, waste management and behavioural change. I mean, I suppose there's no point in mentioning that when there is a fire, it's actually not that great for carbon emissions.

Maybe just put the bleeding fire out and that might save the planet all on its own. I was going to say it. Guys, that's your only job. When there's the fire, you put it out. Great. That's net zero. That's carbon neutral. Exactly. I mean, who's coming up with all these cobblers, though? This is the thing. It's all been going on behind our backs. Nobody voted for it.

nobody asked for it these kind of sustainability missions became a thing in every public sector organization without any of us really realizing There's a historian called Peter Turkin who has a theory called elite overproduction, which is that when societies begin to collapse, it's because it has too many people doing these jobs. There's an expression for these jobs that I can't use at this time of the morning, but it is a technique. I think I know what it is.

Yeah, and it's literally what we're describing is having to find roles for busybodies, having to find roles for people because there isn't really a function for them. And that, I think, is what so much of this diversity and net zero stuff is. It's about finding roles for people.

gone to universities to do sociology or whatever it is media studies or something and they they need a job they have huge amounts of debt they're highly qualified in you know in air quotes but but they need a purpose in life and they

this ideology which is the fashionable ideology of the elite and they are able to get jobs this way and that's the important thing to remember that this is what is fashionable amongst our political betters in this country this is what they think is important so it is foisted on the rest of us

It's absolutely extraordinary. Benedict, good to talk to you. Thanks very much indeed. Benedict's political commentator there. Richard says, just woken up to £178 a month rise in my energy bills. Thanks, Labour. 178 pounds a month that's extraordinary i mean we want to hear from you on this because this is an awful label they're calling it everybody's bills are going up whether it's energy bills whether it's council tax bills we want to hear from you as to what it is that you are finding this

morning uh how about this from keith on marine le pen when the bbc banned a record it invariably went to number one the charts you just wait for the backlash just like the uk government the french are taking the mickey out of ordinary french folk because of course marine le pen yesterday was

basically told that she was convicted of embezzlement and barred from standing in the 2027 presidential election. As soon as it happened, I said this has got the whiff of Trump lawfare about it. Have a look at what Donald Trump had to say about what... happened to Marine Le Pen yesterday. What happened in France today, Mr. President? Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, got convicted in court and is now banned from running for office for five years. Do you have a comment? That's a big deal.

That's a very big deal. I know all about it. And a lot of people thought she wasn't going to be convicted of anything. And I don't know if it means conviction, but she was banned for running for five years and she's the leading candidate. That sounds like this country. That sounds very much like this country.

Yeah, because that's exactly what they tried to do for Donald Trump. The main reason why all of these lawsuits were filed against Donald Trump, whether it was in Georgia, whether it was in Florida, whether it was in New York, whether it was in all manner of different places, Washington DC as well, of course, over all manner of different...

things whether it was fixing the election whether it was a criminal charge of embezzlement whether the criminal charge of you know messing around with um with the white house documents it was all designed to stop donald trump from being able to run what they've done in france the marine le pen seems to be a similar thing let's talk to charles henry gallois a french politician from frexit uh of course jean charles henry very good morning to you

Good morning, Mike. Bonjour. I mean, is this what I think it is? Is it an attempt to stop Marine Le Pen from being able to access democracy? What's being said there, please? Yes, you're right. I mean, it's a very sad day for democracy. I'm quite shocked as millions of French are shocked by this sentence. I mean...

If this kind of thing would happen in Russia, Turkey or any African country, what would you say? I mean, it's still France a democracy, you can expect this kind of thing to happen in the... banana republic but not in france when you look at the fact when you look at the case it's uh

It's a disgrace and it looks really designed to prevent Marine Le Pen from running to presidential election. I mean, the aim is to prevent the main opposition. If you look at the last poll, the last one was on Sunday, she was at... 37%. I mean there is no other leader, no other political party in western democracy that does that kind of results.

And they prevent her from running to presidential elections. You look at the fact it's very poor and you know that it's designed to block her, to ban her from presidential elections. The main element in the sentence is she's sentenced with... um executional provision and you know normally you apply an executional provision when you have some risk that the people will do again the crime

but marine le pen is no more president of national rally she is no more mep so what is the risk and yet they apply this they apply this because if she appeal it would allow her to go to presidential elections. That's one thing. And when you look at the case, it's so poor. What they blame, they blame that the parliamentary assistant, they do national politics.

But you know an MEP in France and in all the countries, he does as well national politics. So if you assist him, you will assist him in national politics. So they blame the role and the status of the parliamentary assistant. which is a joke which is a total joke so they blame politicians to do politics right and interestingly it's basically what what is the case so it's totally uh let's say

disproportionate the sentence to ban her to run to election. It means that they wanted to ban Marine Le Pen, they want to prevent Marine Le Pen from bullying the next presidential election.

yes a lot of people think it will backfire though because actually whether she runs or not as the leader of the party the party will triumph and the party will do very well a lot of people also pointed yesterday to christine lagarde who's of course now the president of the european um union and was president of the european central bank you know she was also fined um an amount of money for some missteps that she made when she was involved uh in uh in brussels but she did not she was not banned

running for office she was not you know punished in the same kind of way and you know you know what mike you're right and you know what the current prime minister francois bero had exactly the same case when they were uh when his party that MEP is on parliamentary assistance. The difference is It was a quite when Marine Le Pen get five years conviction and five years from elections. So you see that you have two-tier justice and it's designed to prevent Marine Le Pen from running.

On DAB Plus. On YouTube. On your mobile. And on your side. This is Talk. morning mike when i was a kid i was scared of the police in a respect way even more so of my dad if i'd be brought home by the police the police are rubbish today but there's no respect for anything or anyone anymore and peter says morning mike you're right we don't need an april fool this government is taking us for fools all

the bleeding time let's get a voice note uh from brian morning mike brian satland that meeting that that idiot starmer had yesterday you know on the meeting of the unwilling or whatever it is you know what what is the point of it and what has it achieved apart from

a few free beers and a lot of grub you know nothing's gonna get done it's just himself trying to make himself look important rolling up his sleeves and giving a little 10 minute speech Absolute complete waste of time and possibly out of taxpayers' money.

absolutely right i could not agree with you more it is a waste of complete time in complete performance of nonsense you know talking about how we're going to crack down on the people smuggling gangs because not one of them will make any money from this vile trade oh really have you ever seen any

you've ever met any people that run human trafficking organizations or drug gangs they don't care what politicians say they don't care what the police do they basically make a million pounds a minute because they're very good at what they do i'm not saying i endorse what they do

but you can't just go well i'm going to frighten them into stopping really are you and i don't think so uh let's talk to katherine porter though energy consultant because uh we've got plenty to talk about this morning katherine we've we've sort of stumbled into a rather interesting vein of um

public sector nonsense which is their sustainability statements we've got the fire brigade we've got leicester police we've got the metropolitan police all of whom have sustainability objectives shall we say which is so ludicrous and ridiculous i don't know whether you've been listening But it shows you just how embedded all of this net zero nonsense is in every single sort of aspect of our lives. Yeah, it is. It's insane.

a couple of weeks ago we were talking about heathrow airport heathrow has been going on about sustainability for more than a decade yeah i am and what good has it done then when they ended up having a blackout not very much good at all Well, exactly. These services should be focusing on their core jobs. And yes, let's not have waste and all the rest of it. But, you know, when you try and tie everything to a climate emergency, you really go down the wrong track. Yeah, exactly right.

even the government seemingly are moving away slightly from the climate emergency because it's not quite as emergency like as it used to be because they're saying well you know we might hit net zero some point in the future but it might not be 2030 it might be 2050 i mean ed will have been still running around like a maniac but i mean the government have sort of accepted i think haven't they that these targets are not really um going to be made

Well, I mean, they might be starting to come around to that way of thinking, but unfortunately, they're still pressing ahead with a lot of very damaging policies that act in the other direction. There's a consultation ongoing at the moment about this carbon capture and storage plan.

have 22 billion pounds of spending on something that countries around the world have spent billions on in the last couple of decades got really nowhere and now potentially we're going to have levies added to our bills to pay for us to try and do it. Exactly right.

They're looking at extending the subsidies for renewable generation, despite the fact that in the last couple of years we've built wind farms that spend twice as much time being paid not to generate than are paid to actually produce electricity. Well, exactly right. It's a total mess.

it is a total mess and ed milliband has even admitted that the public sector will be paying basically or the taxpayer will be paying for solar panels and wind turbines coming in from china which may have been produced by slave labor

Yeah, I mean, it's awful, but also just from a pure climate perspective, it makes no sense because energy in China is a lot dirtier than it is here. And then you have to ship all this stuff over. And even worse now, we have the prospect of losing our last blast furnaces and not being...

to make orange steel, which has a huge national security implication, as well as just being really dumb for the planet. The emissions from that, from doing that in China instead of here, are insanely higher. This is completely... going in the wrong direction. Totally, yeah. And I see from your Twitter that you made a point that in February the cost of balancing the national electricity system was more than double the amount spent during the same month last year.

That's something more than 200 million pounds, tell us about that. Yeah, so these costs are managing the balance between supply and demand in real time. The electricity grid is really sensitive to that. And if you don't get that balance within a really narrow margin every single moment, then you actually run the risk.

blackouts and it's the job of the national energy system operator to do that to make sure it's always in balance and it has a whole bunch of tools for this but these tools cost money and that's what these balancing costs are now you get these variations

not just from demand where people's behaviour can be a bit difficult to predict, but because of the weather. Adding weather-based generation into our energy system has made it a lot less predictable, a lot more variable, and it's raised the cost of this. you know, balancing activity that has to take place otherwise the lights won't stay on.

right meanwhile we're being told that we should uh take a photo of our energy meter before april the first uh which of course is a bit late for people who haven't done it yet but the reason being of course that the cap is lifted again 111 pounds more likely to be charged to everybody uh if as a minimum really over the course of the next six months before it goes up again i mean there's no indication that any of this price cap stuff is ever going to come down is it

Well, so the cap's the maximum rather than the minimum. You're not allowed to charge more than that on the variable tariff. But it probably will come down. Actually, based the next two quarters, we've seen gas prices fall quite early. They've actually come down 40% since their peak in February. And unfortunately,

they were just rising into that pricing window where the price is set for the price cap. So we're back at the levels we were at in November for gas, which is what you'd expect on a seasonal basis. but is it oil prices down as well i mean we never seem to get the benefit of wholesale oil prices or gas prices when they come down uh affecting our our own sort of domestic bills they don't seem to ever really go go down

do it well so the problem is that i'm if you look at electricity people complain that electricity is set by gas now that's true in the wholesale market the wholesale electricity price is determined by the wholesale gas price But the wholesale electricity price is only 40% of the bill that we pay. So if we're seeing things like green levies going up, if we're seeing network costs going up, those balancing costs are counted towards the network costs, which is about 20% of the bill.

then you don't see the benefits of the gas price falling in the way you'd hope, because there's a lot of other costs in the mix that are going up while the gas costs are going down. And this is actually why we saw in 2023 household spend on gas.

and electricity went up despite the fact that wholesale prices fell dramatically right so has anybody got any hope left for the rest of this year i mean it's only uh past the first quarter we're into april now april the first april full um What chance will people have of seeing their energy bills coming down over the course of the next six months?

Well, we are expecting to see them come down because they've, as I said, come down by 40% since the highs in February. We'd expect both on a seasonal basis because we just use less gas in the summer to see that price come down for the three months. after this current price cap period that's starting today. But also the indications are that later in the year they will remain lower and not go back as much as you'd expect into the winter. have some visibility on

global gas prices stabilizing. We've got new upstream projects coming on stream that bring new gas into the market. And then there's also some speculation that there might be a resumption of gas supplies from Russia. there's quite a strong pressure at the moment from German industry to reopen the Nord Stream pipeline that was least damaged in those explosions a couple of years ago.

And that's obviously going to be a very politically sensitive topic. But I think if we do start to see some resolution of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, then certainly Germany could very well look to start buying more Russian gas again. And in that case, you could expect to see quite a dramatic impact on prices.

Indeed. Good to talk to you. Catherine Porter, thank you very much indeed, energy consultant. We've got much to do. This is from Adam in Surrey. He says, great show. My water bill is up 34%. Outrageous. Council tax is over £4,000 a year. Because I work in the private sector, I don't get...

pay rise i will be directly affected by the increase in national insurance as to what i own for the company has to be offset against my salary and all associated costs to my employer all costs associated with my employment office space uh it tax and national insurance fails to understand that the private sector funds the public sector she needs to go and she needs to go now absolutely right let's get a voice note from fran on cancelled nhs appointments

Hi, Mike. Fran from County Down in Northern Ireland. Mike, I was referred to ENT by my GP and she told me if I hadn't heard anything, it was quite urgent to get back in touch with her. So I sort of called back... in touch with her after about a month and she went online and looked at my notes and she said oh they've um they've actually cancelled the referral here because they said that you're already in process with them

i said i am not in process with the ent i don't think i have ever been in process with the ent in my whole life so um she's put it through again but call me suspicious mike but i just think that they are uh i will just cancel off you and then maybe half of them won't be referred again and that's how we can get the

the the waiting list down love the show mike thanks bye fran very interesting information you're absolutely right lots of people are telling me things like what you've just told me uh that people are told oh we didn't realize you still wanted the operation oh we still didn't know that whether you sent

he wanted the procedure we sent you a questionnaire and you didn't return it oh we just removed you from the list you know there's something going on and it's very cynical i don't trust this government one iota i don't trust west streeting i don't trust the nhs i think what they're doing

is deliberately removing people from the register, deliberately removing people from the NHS appointments, waiting lists, and if they keep them on there, what they're doing is cancelling them in order to move them to another list, which makes it look like the lists are coming down. Across the UK, on DAB+, on YouTube, on your mobile, and on your side. This is Talk.

The home of common sense. This is talk. Now, Dean Dorries is here. She's got a column in the mail today saying, I believe there is only one excuse left for Harry's behaviour. And here's what it says about Meghan. She's, of course, former culture secretary.

author Nadine very good morning to you nice to see you good morning mike nice to see you too so um i mean you claim uh that you're going to continue with your armchair psychologist hat on so it's a very interesting piece you've written i mean we're all we're all armchair psychologists in a way aren't we i mean but you've got a bit of an insight here tell us tell us what you think?

Well, it was a comment that a friend who's a psychologist made to me months ago about the relationship between Harry and Meghan. I think it was a group conversation we were having. And actually, to be honest, someone was saying, oh, he's completely an earth friend.

all it must be sex and this friend psychologist came in and said actually i think he's a flying monkey and and i kind of got interested in that theory because i'd never heard of it before and i think we all know them and it comes from the wizard of oz who put a spat over the flight i used to be terrified of the flying monkeys in the wizard of oz when i was yeah i was well

Well, they tend to be quite vulnerable and needy people who have problems of their own, actually. They're easy people, easy prey for others who are narcissists to kind of put a spell over, to captivate. And what they do is they enable, they excuse.

they explain the behavior of narcissists and actually the professional advice to how to deal with a flying monkey if you know someone in your life who is a narcissist you know they're a narcissist but you have someone else who's constantly trying to excuse and enable their behavior then the professional advice is to completely disengage with both the flying monkey and the narcissist and um

And I think that's what's slowly happening to Harry. I think friends of his are slowly, he's becoming more isolated. I think there's a report in the Daily Mail today, which says, well, certainly was yesterday, where his friends are saying they're worried about him. He never leaves the man. mansion um he's he's become very isolated and lonely while megan is flying off on her career launching her lifestyle show launching her podcasts and if you want examples of how their relationship is working

If you look at a couple of examples, really, one is the polo prize giving viral video when nobody knew she was going to turn up to that prize giving. She just arrived on the stage. told Dr. Chanduka, who was the chairman of the Ascent of Bali organisation, who'd organised the pyro-nome match, he was there to hand over with Harry the prize.

twice told her to move away from harry's side and forcing dr chandruka to duck underneath the cup it was a very awkward it was awkward yeah i remember seeing it was awful i remember thinking goodness gracious me and you know what's interesting as well because there's a couple of other bits of footage which haven't been written about as much uh of recent times when they went to Jamaica I don't know if you've seen this one there's a bit where Harry's talking to the um

Prime Minister of Jamaica and she's sort of standing behind him with this big beaming smile and at one point she kind of taps him with her hand as if to say you know what you can you move on a bit so that I can talk to him and then you know there's a couple of other instances where she's she's sort of nudging him with her elbow

you know like she's got these sort of not very subtle signs that she wants him to move yeah yeah there's that i mean it classically fits the mold of flying monkey but also that link between the polo incident when i saw the interview with dr chanduka on sunday and realized

in her words and you know i don't think she's she had nothing to gain by doing that interview but i think it's all quite messy though i'm not sure she's going to come out of it covered in in roses either but when i saw that link that he was asking her to go out and defend Megan, because Megan was looking not very good in that video. He wanted Megan to become the victim, so he wanted us to defend Megan and not apologise to Megan, but excuse Megan, excuse their behaviour.

I think what you saw then was the flying monkey link, the scenario where the narcissist uses the flying monkey to go out and excuse and put rights and enable the continuation of their behavior. And that for me was a dynamic. direct link and that was what I was trying to write about my column today was if you want an example of how he's under the spell that is it he's constantly trying to he didn't spare he didn't spare when the book was really about

calling people misogynist, racist. The book was all about defending Meghan. Yeah. so that's my theory it's very clear and also you know i think it's a good one because she also is as a narcissist loves to be playing the victim doesn't she i mean you know she left um the royal family when they it's a five-year anniversary of an exit i think it was yesterday uh five years ago they left

when she went and did that interview with Oprah Winfrey. It was all about how terribly badly she'd been treated. It was all about the racism of the royal family. You know, all this stuff that turned out to be completely untrue, which he then had to deny when he was interviewed by Tom...

Bradby, you know, back in London when his spare book came out, he said, oh, no, we weren't the ones that were saying the Royal Family were racist. That was just written about by the press. Complete rubbish. He was covering up for her. And, you know, I think you're right. I think he is. That's the enabling behaviour. Totally. Totally.

enabling behavior and i don't think and and and also there's another if you watch back in sort of the day when they were allowed to be on the balcony with the royal family there was a time when he was kind of telling her how to behave because there's a couple of clips where she's looking

around at him and sort of trying to talk to him and he's basically saying to her you know you've got to look the other way keep looking forwards because we're standing here together i'm behind you stop looking at me and you can read his lips right so that is in that situation it was like he was still in charge relationship he's now clearly not yeah no absolutely and i don't know where it's going to end up for harry i don't know any of us do but it's not going to end well is it

He's going to become more and more isolated, more and more lonely, more and more under the spell. And the problem with controlling narcissists is that it takes a long, long time.

to break away from them yeah the relationship is coercive it is in a way controlling and it takes a long time for the flying monkey to get themselves out i think we probably all know people who um the relationship we've described today where one person is very much controlling and very much in charge and the other person constantly excuses their behavior i think we all know people are in those relationships that last for many years and the person who's doing the explaining the the excusing

the that person becomes the enabler and also becomes an incredibly lonely person you watch friends disappear friends move away and they always strip away the friends and the friends and the family you know her family she has no no brooch with at all apart from her mother. Her father still hasn't met their children, which I think is pretty appalling, no matter how badly you get on with them. And that's what they do. They isolate you. They make sure that you don't go out with your mates anymore.

you know I mean I used to joke that when they put the big fence around their first house they had in LA it wasn't to keep him from being pictured by the paparazzi it was to keep him in because he wanted to get out you know

Well, that's typically your take, Mike. Well, it would be. I mean, you know, women have tried to control me in the past and found it quite difficult, you know, and I don't want to control them with women. It's not for me. I like women to be completely and utterly as they are. I don't want to control them. You do what you want, you know. But let me ask you a question.

you to turn your your psychiatrist's couch around slightly and analyze analyze the dynamic here's a dynamic for you to analyze rachel reeves and keir starmer What about that dynamic? I knew you were going to get onto politics. There's no way I'm going to get on this interview when he doesn't ask me something about politics. Well, come on. Why would I? Rachel Reeves is, well, look, you know,

She's very grateful to him. He made her the first female chancellor. So she owes a lot to Keir Starmer. He very rarely mentions it as well, doesn't he? Yeah. So she's there by courtesy.

And by the grace of Keir Starmer, she will... always i think possibly defend him the trouble is with that relationship is that she isn't the one in charge he is she's not the chancellor he is him and his aides and number 10 are i don't believe for a moment rachel from accounts is the person who's running the economy i think she's very much i don't think she would know how to you know rachel reeves has not made the transfer

from being in opposition to the very grown-up job of being chancellor she's the second most important politician in the country most important person some would say person in the country and in that role of chancellor you have a responsibility to be almost slightly apolitical yeah because you're looking after the finances of the nation of everybody regardless of which way they vote and it's a whole new

It's a whole new arena in terms of politics. Most people make that transfer and grow up within those first few weeks and understand the responsibilities of the role. Rachel Reeves has failed to do that. She's moved from opposition into government and is acting still as though she's in opposition. But she also doesn't seem to have a plan, doesn't seem to know what to do.

and hasn't been able to professionally handle the role. And therefore, I think the aides in No. 10, Morgan Sweeney and others, and Keir Starmer are basically dictating to her which way they want her to go.

There are lots of relationships you can look at between prime ministers and chancellors. Look at George Osborne and David Cameron. They worked as a team. There was no animosity between those two blokes. Everyone was waiting for it to happen, but it never did. They worked as a successful team together. Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, complete animosity, two completely different entities. And actually, I would say Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. I remember Boris Johnson pleading.

to have conversations with Rishi Sunak about reducing taxes, reducing corporation tax. That was the thing Boris Johnson wanted to deliver in the economy more than anything. And Rishi Sunak even refusing to engage in the conversation.

So, you know, you can have different chancellors and different prime ministers and whether or not the relationship works depends, I think, on the chancellor and their willingness to work with the prime minister. What you have with Rachel Reeves is something completely different. You have a prime minister who is in control.

And she is basically, she's not a flying monkey, she's kind of like a puppet. She's just there to do what Number 10 and the Prime Minister want, which is very political. And the job of the Chancellor really is, to a degree, to remain apolitical. Yeah, I think she...

probably when she goes to bed at night suffers from imposter syndrome and wonders how she got there uh despite all of her sort of talking about you know i'm very proud to be the first woman chancellor and you know we've done it all out of uh you know all hard work i don't think she thinks she deserves it No. So I don't think there are many.

politicians who reach government who don't go to bed and think that at night. The responsibility is huge. I know we kind of, you know, I was in cabinet for a year and I know how hard it is. I don't think any of us truly appreciate how difficult the job of being a secretary is.

state or being in cabinet is because you know our job is to shoot at my job now is to shoot down politicians and i don't think but i can tell you it is they are the hardest jobs in the world not least when you get into bed at night you know there's a lot that isn't even in the media there's the meetings you have in strap rooms the stuff you're told in confidence you know when you get into bed at night sleeping is a difficult thing i think i managed on like four hours

a night for a year you know and i think you can see rachel reeves visibly aging before our eyes yeah true is there a flying monkey in the cabinet do you think Well, I haven't even thought about it, Mike, to be honest. I'll think on that one. Yeah, have a think about it. We'll ask you about it next time we get you on. Good to talk to you, Nadine. Great to see you. Thank you very much indeed. Good to talk. Nadine Dorries there, former Culture Secretary, author, columnist.

and sort of armchair psychologist, as she just said. The home of common sense. This is Tor. Let's talk to William Yardwood, who's Taxpayers Alliance Media Campaign Manager. William, very good to see you. Good to see you, Mike. How are you, mate? Very well, very well indeed. We saw each other just not that long ago, actually. Yeah, a few Guinnesses in the lunchtime. A few pints in the pub, absolutely right. You've done a great story this morning.

morning, it's actually John O'Connell's piece that's in the Sun, page 10. How much is your council tax going up this week? Because you've discovered that 3,906 council bosses receive more than £100,000 in

remuneration, and the cost of running councils is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah, and that's 26% more than the previous year, by the way, Mike. And this is all the while council tax goes up across England. I mean, I think the average bandy household is going to be facing about a 5%.

percentage rise in the council tax. But as you know, there are places around the country that are getting way, way more than that. I mean, we were in Windsor and Maidenhead very recently campaigning against, they wanted to raise it by...

25%, which is an absolutely insane number. I mean, granted, Rainer said they could only have it by 8%, but that's still 8% more than they will otherwise be paying. And when I think about what are local people getting, are they getting potholes fixed? Are they getting their bins collected? No, they're paying more.

for less, frankly. And where all this money is going, I think it's going into the back pockets of these backroom bosses. Yeah. And obviously what they're doing as well, and we know this, I think, something like 70 to 80% of all the money that you pay in Castle Sacks goes towards the salaries for these characters. characters and their pensions right because they've all got massive massive pensions and it used to be the case that you would pay

less money to these people because their pensions, their perks were great, but they now got the big salaries as well. Yeah, totally. I mean, one thing people have a go at us for at TPA is they say, oh, why are you including pensions in there? Why are you including compensation? Why are you including their bonuses? I think it's really important that...

local taxpayers know how much they're being fleeced by the town hall bosses because often the biggest pay packages they have are not actually in their salaries it's hidden in their pension contributions i mean how on earth can local councils afford pension contributions of three hundred thousand pounds four hundred thousand pounds possible

even half a million at times while local taxpayers don't even have access to these kind of gold-plated public sector pensions and have to deal with you know horrible roads with potholes in you know bins i mean you know about birmingham i mean birmingham's going on strike i mean birmingham's already pretty full They pretty much declare the state of emergency. And interestingly, in our racist list, mate...

Birmingham didn't give us their accounts. Right. So what are they hiding? Oh, really? What are they hiding? Yeah, they're one of the councils that haven't given us their accounts, and they're one of the councils that went bankrupt as well. So I'd love to know what they're hiding. But yeah, the figures are quite astonishing. I mean, like, if you want to talk about just salary...

for a moment. Yeah. There are 238 council employees on more than Keir Starmer. I know. That is completely not surprising. Well, here's the sort of the top five role of shame, if you like. Anne-Marie O'Donnell, Chief Exec Glasgow, 567,000. Chris Mills, Strategic Director... Thank you. thousand. Nice work if you can get it. Yeah, it totally is. What do they do, these cheap executives? Yeah, that's the thing. So, one of the arguments made to me is that

oh, we need to pay these council bosses and we need to pay MPs and public servants more so that people can get... These high-quality people can be attracted to these jobs. Well, where are all high-quality people if these councils are running to the ground? Maybe you talk about Parliament more specifically. You know, MPs...

are getting a 2.8% pay rise. Is the country well run better? Obviously not. No. Do they deserve the pay rise? No. So, like, why on earth would I, should local taxpayers have to cough up, you know, hundreds of thousands of pounds in council tax in order so that a council boss can sit on a pretty pen? all the while their bins aren't collected, their piles aren't fixed in. And actually, in reality, they're getting less for paying more. And that sums up modern Britain, doesn't it? You pay more tax.

You get less. You get less. And also, all of these companies, councils rather, that are going bankrupt and losing money and unable to manage their own budgets, they don't seem to ever get rid of anyone. No. I mean, they never have a sort of paring back of public employees, do they?

And that's our argument, Mike, basically. Instead of cutting down on frontline services, how about some of these council bosses look themselves in the mirror and realise that actually where all the money's going is to them, and actually they're not a good use of taxpayers' cash, and maybe some of them should actually quit their jobs if they actually know what was good for...

taxpayers, or at least not take insane bonuses, not take insane salaries, not take insane pension contributions like I mentioned earlier, and put local taxpayers first. But yeah, it's good work if you can get it. And I mean, we do this paper every single year, and we cause a sting with it every single year. And yet...

every time we call every time we do a paper like this it gets worse you know so it's like they still think they can get away with it so i think that's you know there's a room for central government to get involved there and say

Oi, you're not going to have pension contributions totalling more than, like, the average, you know, someone beyond their wildest dreams could have in the private sector. You know, you're not going to have salaries over 150k or get paid more than the Prime Minister when your council's in it. estate and you can't even collect bins properly. I think there needs to be a bit of more bullishness from central government in order to get involved.

I don't think we're going to see that, do you think? I don't think we are, no. The other thing that seems to pop up every now and again is the fact that they now have so many people working from home or in blended working situations that there are actually, some of them, thinking of selling off council property.

Now, it seems to me that if that's council property that they sell, that they then feed the money back into their system, surely that's our money, isn't it? Because if we own a council building, then it belongs to the public, doesn't it? Yeah, totally. They should knock it off the council tax if they sell it.

Yeah, totally, but they won't, obviously. And also, when you talk about working from home, what about working from abroad? Loads of council staff work from abroad, they go to the beach, you know, they sip margaritas on the beach, all the while enjoying these pension costs.

contributions, these salaries, these bonuses, while ordinary taxpayers get fleeced. And quite frankly, Mike, it baffles me that these guys are able to get away with this. And I think there needs to be some genuine radical reform from the top in order to deal with this kind of stuff, because this lot isn't going to reform themselves.

Of course not. And of course, I presume if you work for the council, you get some help with paying your own council tax, do you? You probably don't have to pay what everybody else pays. Yeah, there was a bit of a scandal a while back where some Scottish councils apparently were just not expensive. the countertax but just not paying it just not paying out to back pay it but if they hadn't got found out like

They wouldn't have paid it. Of course not. Talking of Scotland, I don't want to get specific because obviously there were elections going on. But I got past a story the other day from one particular council up in Scotland where the councillors themselves, who are normally not paid... an awful lot of money they're relatively sort of on 20 000 here 30 000 there they're all getting a 40 pay rise

Which is extraordinary. Yeah. I'll pass that one on to you because you may want to look into it. It is extraordinary, but again, it's not something to be too surprised of because council bosses think they can get away with...

anything, because they think no one's talking about it, and there's no scrutiny. But we at the Taxpayers Alliance have got dead eyes on this, you've got your eyes on this, you know, and the government needs to turn, specifically Andrew Reign, the Deputy PM, whose counsel, this isn't a remit. She needs to do something about

this if she's interested in actually saving taxpayers money as you know labor say that they are whether you believe that or not another thing if they're interested in saving taxpayers money maybe they should look at the amount of council bosses that are filling these back rooms and wasting you know hundreds of thousands if not millions of pounds of taxpayers

cash every single year. All the while, ordinary taxpayers have to deal with rubbish in their streets. And, I mean, talk about bins and rubbish. What are people going to do? There's a fly tip, aren't there? And the streets are just going to look worse. So actually, you're actually making these areas look worse by not collecting your...

bins and by not putting the money into these bins because you're putting the money into your own back pocket. And it's the stuff that people care about. Yeah, totally. You can talk about international, you know, diplomacy and whether or not we're going to sell the Chagos Island. This is the stuff that people really do care about. Absolutely. Good to see you. Thank you very much indeed. William Yarwood there from Taxpayers Alliance. The home of common sense. This is talk.