Farage attacks 'deluded' Sadiq Khan

0:02The Telegraph

0:10Nigel Farage says he's going to topple Sadiq Khan. Meet Reform's vigilante mum, who's going to take on the London Mayor. And after the reform leader accused me of playing silly little games at a previous press conference, we reveal his best answer yet to a Daily Tea question. Welcome to the Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Camilla Tomini.

0:42Tim, before we unveil ceremoniously our first reform armband of 2026, prepare to wear one of these bad boys weekly. Can I just say, still a slight whiff, isn't there, of your shoe polish? Right. You cleaned your shoes and polished them, albeit at our desks, which I didn't object to on Monday. Right. Can you not slightly smell it? The smell is still there. I'm used to it. I just got used to it. Could you clean my DMs after this? Because the team has pointed out that as I've had to dress for the weather to avoid going arse over tit as I'm running for trains, my boots look extremely... What are you wearing?

1:17You're wearing Doc Martens. It's not ladylike and they do need to be polished. The trouble is you will then be smelling my polish the rest of the week. It was fun, wasn't it? Reforms. Hang on, I'm taking that off because it's bright pink and it doesn't match. It's quite fun, wasn't it? Farage. In full flow to herald in a new year. We hadn't heard from him for two weeks and so he decided to spend an hour and a half. I saw him at a fox hunt on Boxing Day. How posh are you? I wasn't riding, so I'm not that posh. A stride or horse? This was the meat that gathers at Chiddingston, a small village in Kent.

1:54And what I find interesting is I've been going about 10 years and I can remember meeting Nigel there about 10 years ago. And he was just there in his waxed jacket by himself, sidled up to me hello chap how are you no one around him at all last year when he went and i interviewed him for a story for boxing day um quite a few crowds but nonetheless people could get right up close to him this year when i went it was like a movie star was visiting the fox hunt he was so surrounded by people that i couldn't even say hello and i had to message him afterwards to say I was there. But I also had to leave pretty sharpish because the hounds took a sexual interest in my cavalier spaniel.

2:36They really did. But I wish Leila Cunningham of Reform had been there to protect him. The tiger mum who Reform have now selected as their candidate. That was the purpose of this morning's press conference, to introduce Leila Cunningham as their candidate for London mayor in 2028, presumably against Sadiq Khan, who seems to be looking for a fourth term. I couldn't believe it had been three terms already. Where have the years gone? It flies by when you're having fun, doesn't it? And so he used this opportunity to unveil her as a candidate. Now, these local elections, I tell everyone, will be a referendum on Sadiq Khan, on Labour's broken London.

3:16It's Londoners' chance to vote out every councillor who's propped him up. and stayed silent while he's let our city down. From now until May, I will be spearheading our campaign, touring every borough, because for the first time in years, Londoners finally have a real alternative, reform. And unlike Labour or Tories, we won't defend a status quo that doesn't work for the voters. See, London is my home. It made me who I am. I was a bit surprised. When you're releasing your London mayoral candidate, but don't you want them bungee jumping off the Tower of London or something? Yes. But just to simply bring them out.

3:56I know. Show them off. And Leila came on dressed appropriately like a Chelsea pensioner in a red coat with gold buttons and black trousers. It was actually a matching skirt. To be fair, she had a sort of Thatcher-esque twin set. She looked nice. I'm not going to take away from her. She's a very attractive woman. But as she started speaking, Farage sat down with his glasses on and started writing something. Yes. I thought maybe he was doing some thank you notes for Christmas. Possibly. But either way, the whole thing had an air of this is the Farage show. It always has an air. We'll unveil our candidate, but really this is about Nigel Farage and Greenland.

4:33Indeed, yes. She is a little bit scary. She is a mum of seven. She's got five biological children. And then when she remarried, she became stepmother to her second husband's two children. So she describes herself as a mother of seven. She is Egyptian, originally, and a Muslim. Which will be interesting when it comes to the dynamic of Khan versus Cunningham, not least because she had a go at him about blaming his own failings. If anyone points out his failings, he says it's because he's a Muslim. He attacks anyone who says London's dangerous. He calls them far-right, racist. He ludicrously says that criticism of his record is because he's Muslim and we are all Islamophobic.

5:18Frankly, it's an insult to victims and to Londoners. And I thought, ooh, that's a bit of a dodgy thing to say. And then you said to me, she is Muslim, so she can say it. She's the only person who can say it. But isn't that a sign of how Britain has changed, that the two candidates, we guess, will both be Muslims? Yes. But equally, in the battle between Khan versus Cunningham, I'm a bit worried about Sadiq because she is a self-styled vigilante mum... That's right. Who in the past, I think... She chased down muggers who targeted her children. Yes. And did her best to sort of pursue a private prosecution slash vendetta against them and good for her.

5:56She was channeling her inner Rudy Giuliani by saying zero tolerance on crime. She was quoting crime statistics at us, you know, knife crime up, violent crime up, hundreds of mobile phones being nicked every five minutes and all the rest of it. And then I leaned into you and I said, my God, this girl is slightly scarier than the crime stats. I just wouldn't, I mean, what I'm saying is you just, you wouldn't argue with her. She is formidable and means business and spoke very passionately and seriously about what she described really as the descent of the capital. She said she wanted the capital to go back to what it was like when she grew up in the city in the 1980s.

6:37Yes, which I remember the 1980s in London and they were not very nice. I mean, if you were a big fan of crack, then hey, it was at a low time cost in price. Yeah, or riots. But we were meeting not very far away from a charming place that used to be called Cardboard City, because London just had a terrible homeless problem back then, as well as crime and begging and drugs and all those sorts of things. And riots. I mean, think of how Brixton's changed. Large parts of London have gentrified and I think are a lot better than they are. But I put this to a colleague in the press gallery, and he said you have to understand that things are bad.

7:13They're just a different kind of bad. That whereas there used to be in London a sort of low-level threat against everyone, there's now this kind of roaming gang crime. Yes, balaclavered people on motorbikes grabbing phones. You don't get shot, but someone gets shot outside your front door. Yes. And also shoplifting is now endemic and she quoted a shop that is robbed every 30 minutes by the same person. Yeah. Now you'd think that would be an easy arrest but part of this story is also the police's lack of a sense of priority. And she was asked about, so how much money are you going to put into the police?

7:46How many more people are you going to recruit? And she said, this is not about recruitment. This is about priorities and that she, her plan will be to be on top of deployment of police. She wants to know exactly where they are and what they're doing and to see them being used effectively. I think that's very interesting. Okay, Leila was, she's scary. I don't know if she's scary, but she's a strong woman who laser-like focus in on one issue, which is crime. And I think that's the smart strategy because you've got to cut through. You don't want to run on everything, environment, the sewers. You run on one issue, the public are going to associate with you.

8:21And the thing that Londoners are most concerned about is crime. But also running for London is not like running for prime minister. You're not there to bring the country together and to bridge the gulf between different generations and things like that. You're there to be a ruthless champion for the city. and I think people do gravitate towards toughness when it comes to that. Sadiq Khan is not a charmer. No. He's not a lovable figure. No, that's right. And I think maybe Boris being Mayor of London spoiled us because he was fun and funny, but that's not really the job. Also, her rhetoric around you, Les, and how preposterous it was to be charging people just for going about their daily lives, for needing to work, for being parents dropping children off at London schools, for being carers trying to make their way across town to see elderly relatives.

9:10I thought that would really appeal. Don't forget, you mentioned Johnson there. When he was challenged in his own seat, remember he won basically at the last minute because ULES had been extended and everyone in Uxbridge hated it so much that it was a key reason why the Conservatives weren't completely wiped out in the capital. This whole reform assault on London and Greater London, we were sitting next to a chap, weren't we, that was from Bexley. Yes. And he was talking to us about the changing face of that constituency and that there were two different caucuses of people, disgruntled Tories who have had enough and therefore switched to reform, and then your sort of red wall.

9:48I mean, Bexley isn't necessarily red wall in the sense of how we regard it to be in the north, but disgruntled Labour working-class people who have historically always voted for the Reds, they don't instinctively like or trust Farage very much, but they have had enough and they just want to exercise a two-fingered salute on May 7th. And so we could see areas like Bexley and Bromley turn turquoise. We could see that. And we could also witness a sort of Tory annihilation. Yeah, this touches upon a problem that the centre-right has, which is they're divided. And Lena Cunningham was asked at the press conference, do you welcome the fight with the Tories in the race or would you like to ask them to bow out, which would be the logical thing to do?

10:35And she said, bring it on. Now, we'll get on to polling issues in a moment. But Farage's argument is that actually the more parties that run, the lower the vote you need to win. Yes, precisely. Because, I mean, before it was cancelled, I remember seeing a poll for the Brighton local elections for the merility there that showed reform winning against the Greens and Labour in a really hippie left-wing part of the world. But it was only because reform was on like 29 % and Greens were on 28%. It isn't that reform is storming those sorts of areas. It's just that if you have a loyal roughly quarter to a third of the vote, you can win loads of places you wouldn't ordinarily win.

11:16So that's an interesting point. is the divide between Tory and reform going to scupper this opportunity in London? Because I'm sure by the time he runs for a fourth time, everyone really will be sick of Sadiq Khan. But for me, the bigger philosophical question is, much of the rights narrative is built around hating London. So how do you then win in London? If your story is this country is being destroyed by the middle class or multicultural flesh pot of London, then what kind of candidacy do you run in the city? And are there enough people within London who essentially hate London in order to win London?

12:04But then Faraj was trying to make the point that you didn't really ever find anyone that was effusive about Khan. You know, he has maintained his supremacy there against all the odds. The point was made. The reason he has continued to be mayor, despite being increasingly unpopular, is because there hasn't been a good enough candidate to take him on. Yeah, but I have to say, listening to Leila Cunningham's rhetoric, this is my point, is it didn't sound to me just like she was saying Sadiq Khan is a bad manager of this city. She was saying this city has gone to the dogs. Yes. Because she was doing all that stuff about when I grew up in the 80s, it was a green and pleasant land.

12:41She talked about the copper living on the same street and things like that. She said she could go from Brixton to Crystal Palace on the Tube, age 10, and her parents didn't need to worry about her. But now she worries every time one of her children goes outside. No, I'm sure that was true if she grew up in somewhere like Beckham or Hampstead and Highgate. I'm not sure that it was ever true in Lewisham or in... Where's Only Fools and Horses? Yeah, Peckham. Peckham. No, quite. But that's just part of Farage's whole Broken Britain shtick, isn't it? But you're now asking the denizens of Broken Britain if they're willing to vote against Broken Britain.

13:21And another issue is demographic change in London. It might just be that everything they hate about this capital is why this capital will never vote reform, because demographically it is now full of people who not necessarily like what it is, but are personally invested in what it is. Yes, or want to vote along more sectarian lines, as we have witnessed in Tower Hamlets and other areas. Or who do want to vote for public sector goodies, which reform is trying its best to suggest it's not in favour of.

14:01The bigger picture that Farage was presenting to press and public today was he was basically saying, we've got 17 weeks until the local elections. notwithstanding the fact that some have been cancelled. 32 London boroughs are up for grabs and he is personally viewing this as a dress rehearsal for office. Let's just hear him talk about what it would mean for reform if they win big. This is still a very major set of elections taking place on May 7th and it may well decide who the Prime Minister is. It may well decide who the leader of the Conservative Party is and it will make a material difference, to my strength or otherwise, as leader of this party too, and that's pretty much unavoidable.

14:48So mistakes are very, very high. So following on from that, Tim, this is the big question now. We've seen reform almost peak in the summer. It was up, according to Find Out Now, to 35%. Subsequently through to autumn and now, over Christmas, the poll rating has plunged. It's come down to 30, according to Find Out Now, and then it's plunged even lower into the 20s following what has been a very, very successful 12 months for Farage. And this was my question. The Spectator poll of polls put reform on 32 % in October, now on 28%. What vote share do you need to win on May 7th to turn round to the country and say you have got a mandate for national governance?

15:33On the polls, well, they're all up this week, as you know. So there you go. Three polls this week, all up. One with us up one, one with us up two, one with us up three. Look, we did reach a peak in the summer. Not surprising. That came in the aftermath of what happened on May 1st. It also happened because in August, when the Westminster classes were on the beaches of Saint-Tropez, we were working. And that was when I mentioned Colin Sutton a moment ago. I could have mentioned Vanessa Frake, the former tough prison governor. We were very, very active in the month of August with our law and order campaign.

16:13And we were campaigning then into a vacuum. So maybe we went one or two points, rather higher at that moment in time than we anticipated. But we begin the year strongly. We're doing this press conference today. And I think you can see we've got somebody here who's going to be a serious campaigner. and that'll lead all the way up to May 7th and right on until the mayoral election. And there'll be more press conferences next week, more announcements coming. And, you know, has Kemi had a better couple of weeks? Yes. Has she gained a bit of confidence at the ballot box? Yes. Good. Good for her. That's fine.

16:50But you can't get away from the Tories' record. It's all well and good standing up at the party conference. We're going to abolish stamp duty. Hooray! but this from the party that quadrupled stamp duty in their 14 years in office. And how this bloke Philp, or whatever his name is, I mean, to stand up and to say it was monstrous of the Prime Minister to praise this scumbag, the word he used, from Egypt, when it was the Conservative Party themselves under Boris Johnson that gave the man British nationality, El Fatah, in 2021, is beyond me. So, you know, I would just say this about her, you know, that even though she's horrible about me, I've got no ill will towards her of any kind.

17:36I've never been rude about her. But I just think they're a split party. No doubt 50 or 60 of their MPs would be far better suited in Ed Davis' Liberal Democrats. No, I really mean that. I'm not even joking, for once. I mean that. And they can't get away from their record. They just cannot escape from their record. And I think what you'll see, I predict what you'll see, on May 7th, is the Conservative Party will cease to be a national political party, because they're going to get obliterated in Scotland. They will barely exist in Scotland after May 7th, and I genuinely believe that. And they're probably not too far away from that situation in Wales as well.

18:24and I really think that your Bromleys, your Bexleys, places like that in this campaign in London, places that have literally always been Conservative, I genuinely think we've got every chance of winning. Now, your last question is much harder to answer and that's what percentage will we need? And I don't know. I mean, this Polanski bloke's appeared out of nowhere.

18:53ambitious sort of chap, isn't he, really? Something he's trying to do. I mean, clearly a lunatic.

19:02But, you know, there's a market out there for heroin. There's a market out there for open borders. If this is what turns you on, then the Greens are clearly for you. And, you know, much as we've obsessed since the election about the changing nature of centre-right politics in Britain. I'm actually more fascinated by the changing shape of centre-left politics in Britain and by the growth of the Greens and by the fact that this sectarian vote, which I very much predicted, you know, a handful of years ago, this sectarian vote is just not going to go away. I wonder whether we'll see that sectarian vote in parts of East London.

19:41We've seen it before. In Tower Hamlets and elsewhere, we have seen it before. So, funny, you know, the Tories are bumping along at 20%, but you do begin to wonder whether the Labour vote isn't just disappearing down to a base somewhere in the low teens or something like that, which is why I think these next 17 weeks will probably be the end of this Prime Minister. This is why the public likes Farage, because it sounds as though he's telling you what's going on in his head. It's not a politician just reading a script. And sometimes what's going on in his head isn't that flattering. At another point during the press conference, he said he was just going to spend the next few weeks working on the local elections.

20:22There was an implicit acknowledgement that the party wasn't ready for the local elections. Much as other times he has said, we're not ready to govern yet. And people like that because it's authentic. I also thought that the answer was long and detailed and very polite. Yes. Which is in contrast to a previous answer that he gave to you, which drew a lot of comment from people. Yes, he had accused me of playing silly little games because I had the temerity at the last press conference we attended, which was about reform's alternative budget, to ask who his next chancellor might be, Richard Tice or Zia Yusuf, both of whom were there, by the way.

20:58All of the reform MPs were there at the front, supporting both Leila and Farage. But because I think he loves democratic politics, he sometimes talks about what he's going through as if he's a fan of the process. So how many politicians, when asked, you put it to him that his polling had fallen, how many would say, yeah, that's because we peaked in the summer? Yes, quite. They would never acknowledge that the polls are down, but he did actually acknowledge it. And it's like because he enjoys the process so much that he's capable of talking honestly about it without taking it too personally. He takes some things very personally, don't get me wrong.

21:34But I find when you have a conversation with Nigel, are you up? Are you down? What's going on? I find the answers are often very honest. Ultimately, it's up to a reader to express best why it is reform might now be competitive in London. Fed up conservative writes, Leila is great. She was my councillor in Bayswater and the only Tory, she used to be a Tory, to survive the Labour wave in the last local election. The city has gone to hell under Sadiq Khan and Labour. Anyone who lives in central London can relate to her experiences. I moved out of Bayswater because I came to feel so unsafe despite£1 million plus property values.

22:10Crime is out of control. Police do nothing. More people shoplifting than paying in the local supermarkets. I wrote to Leila to encourage her to run for London Mayor and I'm so glad she has. I'm still in London and she will have my vote. I may even door knock for her. I'm just noticing that the acronym Fed Up Conservative sort of sums up. No, I'm just finding it funny. You know, when we do those groupings, we're going to do those groupings like Bexley, Woman and whatever. We're going to have a whole group of people called the Don't Give A Fed Up Conservatives. And it could be quite a nice little moniker to describe a certain band of voter that have just had it up to here.

22:50But I tell you what was a stark contrast. seeing him as ever freewheeling, freestyling, freelancing with some notes. They did have an autocue, but he's very good at just speaking off the cuff. Compared to we then raced, you went to Parliament, I came back into the office to watch PMQs. I went to Parliament, Farage didn't. Yes, quite. He said at the press conference, I'm going to go now and do some radio. Yeah, a rival newspaper we won't mention. We won't mention because he said there's no point attending a PMQs where the Prime Minister will slack me off and I'm not allowed to answer. But that did mean he missed an unusually good joke by Keir Starmer about reform.

23:27Mr Speaker, can I begin by saying I hope all colleagues had a happy Christmas? It probably feels quite a long time ago now. But not for reform, of course, because today is the day that they celebrate Christmas in Russia. And the comparison between him and Starmer is growing ever more stark, right? Because then you get to PMQs and you get the very sterile, where's my paperwork? And Starmer is having to check every line he says. Process, process, process. Defending the national interest. So he's looking down at his notes in order to formulate some fairly basic sentiments about whether or not we should be sending our own boys and girls to Ukraine.

24:13I thought you really have to check a script for this. Can you not speak off the cuff? And this is the thing. Our editor said this once about Starmer. I thought it was such an accurate observation. He's the kind of lawyer that never goes in a courtroom. And that's right. He was never a performative lawyer. This should be noted. He doesn't know how to sell it. He's not Rumpole of the Bloody Bailey or Perry Mason. He was the guy that went through the paginated bundles in a darkened room and found procedural irregularities. Yeah. He's the anti-politician. He's so non-performative in many ways. He's very, very bad at this.

24:48So what was the fuss about? Well, Kemi Baden-Ock was asking him, essentially, are we putting troops into Ukraine or not? When are you going to make a statement about it? That was the key thing. You might think that's a very narrow thing. Why has he not made a statement to Parliament about it? But it's important, first of all, because it sounds as though, he has committed with the French to send in British troops to potentially put them in harm's way because they are there post-ceasefire to help protect Ukraine, build its infrastructure, do little security stuff. But of course, if Russia were then to attack Ukraine, that would effectively...

25:24Either our troops are there to be used as a human shield to ensure Russia never does attack, or if they are attacked, we're a tripwire to drag NATO in to defend Ukraine. So that is a matter of war and peace. And on those sorts of issues, you're really supposed to involve the House and give a statement first. But the prime minister seemed to have forgotten when he was coming up with this agreement with France that he leads a parliamentary democracy. That doesn't seem to matter to him. So on that basis, it was odd. But the other thing is, is the PM had an open goal here because all of parliament, for good or ill, is united behind Ukraine.

26:04Everyone just ruddy loves Ukraine in the House of Commons. Britain is sending in troops. Frankly, Britain could send in Trident and parliament would be cock-a-hoop about it. I don't know why. But in other words, there is the basis here for some national unity and some easy vote scoring, easy point scoring. If I'm bringing this country together in defense of Ukraine. Instead, he manages to make it a row about whether or not he should have told Parliament about this. And he cannot, in his answers, summon any degree of Churchillian rhetorical power. Can you imagine if, for all his faults, Boris Johnson were in the same situation?

26:43He would have opened with references to Pericles, Dunkirk and Thermopylae. Yes, of course. He would have ticked every box on the bingo card. Instead, Keir Starmer announces it as though he's opening a new bridge over the M1. Yes, that's right. And also, didn't you think as well the contrast was stark? As the Prime Minister sort of tiptoed around and circled around Kemi Badenok, as ever refusing to answer the question of why haven't you consulted Parliament, why aren't you calling for a meeting with NATO leaders and all the rest of it, Farah Jezre just cuts to the quick when asked about whether he supported the idea of boots on the ground in Ukraine.

27:22Boots on the ground. With kit. What boots? What kit? I mean, we might be able to go for six or eight weeks, but if you're talking about a modern-day reincarnation of the British Army of the Rhine, forget it. We are in no position to do it. And despite all the promises that have been made on defence spending, absolutely none of them have happened so far and there's no particular indication that they will. We are not in a place to do it. And Badenock made a good point, did she not, in saying, what possible incentive could you be giving young people to join the armed forces now? With funding still at a record low, commitments turned into ambitions to spend 3 % but nothing on paper committing to it at all.

28:15And the fact that the Labour government now is intent on prosecuting people who, when they were in uniform, oh, shock horror, killed people in previous conflicts. I thought that was what you're meant to do if you join the armed forces. Yes, yes. I'd also like to point out that the unctuous Ed Davey reminds me very uncomfortably of Terry Scott, who I never liked. Terry Scott being you must explain for those uninitiated. Terry and June, the comedian. I know, I know, but we do have people who were born past 1990. Sort of a roly-poly boy trapped in a fat man's body. That was the joke of Terry Scott.

28:52Whenever I see Ed David there, I think of Terry and June. Anyway, he said, isn't this time essentially to go to war with America? That America is undoing the rules-based order etc undermining NATO and we should be building strong alliances with reliable nations I mean okay he's an irrelevant silly man but but what he's saying there is the defender of the rules base order the defender of the Western alliance the defender of NATO is essentially saying let's break from the not just our biggest partner but actually the only partner that can do anything globally. That's a mad, mad call. But he is mad.

29:34He just comes up with mad ideas. But the whole point about Denmark is we can't defend it. And they are talking about we should defend. What are they saying, by the way? Are they saying if Trump were to invade, which he won't, but let's imagine the fantasy world in which he does. What are we saying? That we're going to send in the Royal Navy to defend Greenland? Yeah, we can't even defend our own borders. We wouldn't because it would mean war with America. And we can't because we don't have the military to do it. Yes. So much of this is posturing and ridiculous. Starmer was caught out by Badenock in admitting he hadn't yet spoken to Donald Trump.

30:10Yes, but he said, I have spoken to his advisers. Which was embarrassing in itself. Oh, you've managed to speak to the person that brings him his coffee in the morning. Wonderful. I think he's referring to the switchboard operator. I think that's the adviser. Hello, it's the Donald there. I can advise you to try again tomorrow afternoon after 3pm. Press one if you are the leader of the UK. Press two if you are. But also Farage, again, quite a lot of clarity. I thought he made a good argument for Trump and NATO. Ever since 2016, the narrative has been that Trump wants to destroy NATO. But actually, whenever I've talked to Trump since 2016 about NATO, he's always said, no, that's not right.

30:51I want to strengthen NATO. And ask yourself a question. Has Trump strengthened or weakened NATO? Well, you know, even the Secretary General Stoltenberg, as he was of NATO, said that Donald Trump had led, his words had led, to a significant increase in defence spending from most NATO members. So in many ways, he has strengthened NATO. However, if he was to do this using military force, that probably would be the end of NATO, which is why he won't do it, in my opinion. Again, why Farage is invaluable to our politics, I have not heard anyone in Westminster explain Donald Trump's thinking on Greenland.

31:38No. And it is that, yes, Denmark owns it, but Greenland has actually become more independent in the last few years. Because of climate change, it's becoming easier to move around the Northern Hemisphere. And this opens it up for potential military involvement. You know, you could have Russian subs and things going in areas they didn't used to be able to go to. And then thirdly, there's the question of Chinese money and investment. Do you want a self-governing Greenland, which is being ringed by Russian U-boats and owned by China? That's what Trump is thinking about here. It's probably not going to end in an invasion.

32:13This is absurd. What it will probably end in, as Faraj suggested, is some kind of grand deal. And what America will want to get out of that is access to mineral rights. The other thing that we asked Faraj about naturally as a man who does like a pint or two was about our Save Our Pubs campaign. So publicans and landlords are facing this perfect storm, aren't they? Business rates have been changed and a lot of them are now paying thousands more than they had. The minimum wage has gone up, so they can't afford 17 and 18 year olds to work behind the bar anymore because it means that all the other wages in the pub have to go up along with it.

32:49Energy costs are at an all time high. Pubs are generally drafty places that require log fires and therefore that's problematic. Everything's getting more expensive. They already had to deal with a national insurance increase. And we have reported ourselves that Rachel Reeves has rejected the idea of helping them out with these business rates. and we have now learnt that the government is potentially planning to bring down the drink drive limit. They want to bring it down to Scottish levels, which means that you wouldn't be able to go to the pub and have a pint and drive home. Not necessarily problematic if you live in North London.

33:24If you're going to the pub in Angel Islington and then stepping into your house on Upper Street, quite problematic if you happen to live in rural Dorset and like to make a habit. Maybe you're a pensioner. Maybe you lost your wife two years ago. Maybe it's a little nightly ritual that you pop along to the pub in your car for one pint, a little bit of company, a little bit of chat with the barmaid and whoever else is in there, and then you drive home. If you're stopped by the police, if this measure takes hold, you could be criminalised for having one pint. But they're also getting rid of not chasing foxes, but just riding around after hounds.

34:02They are getting rid of smoking as well. These are hard-faced, nasty Puritans. Yes, well, urbanite Puritans. It would not bother them one jot if every single pub in Britain closed because they don't go to them. Except Angela Rayner. Except Angela Rayner. I know, I know. Come over to the Cavaliers, Ange. It's where you belong. But Nigel gave, I thought, a really good answer to this. The Telegraph has just launched its Save Our Pubs campaign. How do you plan to campaign on this issue, which I would imagine is quite close to your heart? I've saved many pubs over the years, don't worry about that.

34:39Yeah, look, I've always taken the view that every pub's a parliament. That actually it's in pubs where you go in and you chat to people, whether you know them or it's at random, and you express an opinion, and someone says, ah, but have you thought of it this way? And you go, oh, that's interesting. You know, maybe I'm wrong. You know? And in pubs we discuss everything, from why is the England football manager German? to, is the local dicker a Marxist? You know, I mean... These are the kinds of conversations and other more serious issues. Well, you can't be more serious than that, I suppose. Look, it's a tragedy what's happening to pubs.

35:17It's been going on for a very, very long time. I have to say, I listened to a Labour minister on the TV this morning about their new drink-drive laws. So, you know, if you want to have a drink, don't drive. This is because we've got laws being designed by the Islington, North London bicycling classes. What about rural Britain? What about rural Britain? I mean, no-one cares, of course. In fact, many in Labour seem to hate rural Britain. But the drink-drive thing is absolutely ridiculous, wholly unnecessary. We've been where we've been since 1967. It's worked pretty effectively. You actually look at road casualty figures, safety figures in this country, through whatever cause, we are now incredibly safe on our roads.

36:03Incredibly safe. Much safer than France, way safer than Germany. We've actually reached a level on accidents beneath which it's almost impossible to go because there will always be human error. You can find out more about our Save Our Pubs campaign. It's very good. It's illustrated. I like the design of this. It's basically a pint with a third of the glass filled. And I think that actually represents the cost of the pint. that actually goes to the landlord that serves it. The rest goes to the government. So we're going to link that in the show notes because if you are a publican or a landlord, do actually get in touch with us, particularly, by the way, because we're going to be looking for case studies as we go through this campaign and hope to gain support from others in politics aside from Farage.

36:46We're really interested, particularly if you run a pub or a restaurant or you're in hospitality and you've been completely clobbered by the business rates. I cited an example of a landlord that I'd found out about that had business rates of, I think it was around 21 ,000, and then they went up to over 160. And I've subsequently found out that that publican is no longer operating in that area. They just had to close, couldn't afford it. But the email is thedailytea at telegraph.co.uk or contact us on our socials, X TikTok and Instagram at Daily Tea Podcast. We'll be back tomorrow at 5pm.

37:27Thank you.