Mike Graham | 04-Aug-20

first if an effective test and trace strategy isn't in place by the time school was reopened researchers have based their model on an assumption that 70 percent of parents will return to work in the autumn which could have add to the infection rate the former health secretary steven dorrell has told talk radio that schools should be able to change the way they operate as rates of infection change in specific areas in circumstances where in a particular community there is a developing outbreak it seems to me entirely possible for schools themselves to change for example you don't have full year groups mixing and you have the classes mixing meanwhile the former prime minister tony blair has told times radio that it's vital the uk has an effective test and trace system as soon as possible when as inevitably will happen you get spikes and you will have the risk of a resurgence of the disease come the autumn you've got the containment infrastructure in place that allows you to contain the disease without going back into full lockdown because i think the economic and health consequences that would be devastating an outbreak of coronavirus infections in swindon has led to the town reporting the largest spike in cases in england officials say it's being driven by a flare-up at a logistics company meanwhile tens of millions of people in the philippines have been placed back into lockdown the new rules which affect manila and four of these surrounding provinces come as doctors for research in new cases could push the healthcare system to collapse pizza express has said it could close around 67 of its 449 uk restaurants putting over 1 000 jobs at risk it's part of a restructuring plan but the company stressed a final decision is yet to be made and three men have been rescued from a tiny pacific island after a giant sos sign they wrote in the sand was spotted by a plane the trio had been missing for three days after setting out from palawat atoll in a boat on july the 30th all are said to be in good health talk radio national weather a very wet start to the day for most of scotland north west england and north wales there'll be some heavy downpours at times which are set to continue into the afternoon drier in the south with highs of 23 in the south east talk radio from the case files of miss maureen118212 the case of the replacement rodent a woman called asking for the number of a pet shop she needed a new hamster before her son returned from school i didn't ask what happened to the original hamster best not to know some things [Music] for directory inquiries call maureen on one one eight two one two calls cost two fifty per call plus seventy five p a minute with a minimum one minute charge plus your phone company's access charge across the uk online on dab and on your smart speaker the independent republic of mike graham on talk radio good morning and welcome to the independent republic of mike graham right here on talk radio and welcome to day one of the rest of your life and i'm not joking when i say this for the first time in what i think is about five months this morning's newspapers aren't leading with stories about the coronavirus this whether you know it or not is a massive step forward right what it means is that the great messengers of our time are getting fed up with the spin they're getting fed up with the statistics they're getting fed up with the warnings they're getting fed up with the predictions about the worst pandemics who ever hit our shores and they're getting fed up with the narrative that all we have to talk about is the coronavirus and i'm very excited about that i'm actually rather encouraged by it because i know as you do that this is something that we have to get past this is something that we have to get through this is something that we have to put to one side and this is something that we have to move on from because otherwise we are dead in the water it's that simple that must be the reason why fleet street has finally woken up so what i've been saying for a very long time this is not the end of the world by any means what could possibly be any other explanation they are literally bored with it as much as we are right mark my word this is the first step into breaking the deadlock this is the first step into unlocking the gates and loosening the shackles of despair trust me people this is a great day and the government will have to pivot accordingly never mind all this nonsense about locking up london never mind all this nonsense about locking up manchester never mind all this nonsense about shutting down travel and air bridges this is all about getting us out of the maya about getting us back to normal about getting us back into the restaurants into the bars into the hotels and into each other quite frankly let's get on with it please enough is enough first up this morning we'll be talking to the leader of the tories at city hall uh the opposite number of sadiq khan the queen of common sense she is of course uh susan hall oh three four four four nine nine one thousand coming up later on we'll be hearing from serco the company making billions from government service contracts to look after illegal migrants in hotels up and down the land i'll be trying to find out how widespread the problem is and just how much it is costing also we will check in with georgie frost our consumer and travel correspondent currently trapped in spain with the latest on your holiday news and we'll be asking for your stories of coming back from foreign parts is anyone actually taking your details is anyone actually taking your temperature and is anyone actually checking whether you are gonna go into quarantine oh three four four four nine nine one thousand we'll also keep you updated of course with all the latest news from the restaurant business after yesterday's launch of eat out to help out i didn't bother did you and we will be asking whether those of you who have gone back to work now resent those that haven't because if you do i wouldn't be at all surprised you're listening of course to me mike graham on the fastest growing radio station on the planet we're talking of course about talk radio mid morning with mike graham talk radio so yesterday right we had a whole host of different things being said by the government we had a whole host of different plans being laid out in various newspaper articles we had a whole list of kind of you know what can only be described as leaks that were coming out from one place or another kevin o'sullivan my cohort here at talk radio who does the uh weekend slots from 10 to 1 but who also does the thought police with me as a podcast was not at all encouraged by the fact that boris johnson was talking about putting a ring of steel around the m25 in london to stop anybody from coming in and to stop anybody from going out and he uncharacteristically actually said um far be it for me to agree with sadiq khan but actually i agree with khan on not locking down london and actually telling the prime minister this is not the way forward let's talk to susan hall leader of the conservatives at london assembly susana very good morning to you good morning mike thank you very much indeed for joining us now um i have to say uh when kevin o'sullivan agrees with sadiq khan we think there's something very wrong in the world what is going on well there is something very wrong with the world if he thinks i get something right i think what we've got to remember about all these things that came out at the weekend is that none of them came from the government there was a lot of speculation as you know mike there's speculation all over the place um to generally a very left-wing media the minute they can jump on anything they do but then the truth is it hasn't come out at all i mean clearly people are given things or number tony's given lots of different scenarios from the worst to the best and they've got to make something out fit all ish i don't know who uh did the leaks but the truth of it is um unless it comes out of number 10 as a fact uh it should be treated with a you know given a wide berth in some respects yes i totally agree with that because i didn't buy this idea that they're going to lock down everybody from the age of 50 and above i just didn't see that as in any way a kind of viable situation but the slightly worrying thing for me susan is that i wonder whether there are people and you'll have seen this in your time in politics i wonder whether there are people in in in downing street who are sort of floating these balloons to see whether the public likes it or doesn't like it and then making their policy changes uh as a result of how people react well um that is said to happen um i think to an extent it does but at the moment i mean you've only got to turn the television on and you see such planes all over the place some under 50s will be let out over 50s won't etc etc um i don't think there's any truth in that none of us actually know but i suppose if you are looking at the worst case and the best case scenario you are going to look at a catastrophe on one end and something that's acceptable on the other end and they've got to look at what various actions they take what what likelihood are they to to you know put the country in a better position i turned on one radio um program by accident i have to tell you listen i hope you haven't been missing i hope you have been misbehaving for the wrong statement sometimes goodness as if it was a done deal and people were getting so vexed on that on the phones and this is the trouble the the mainstream media very often are causing far more problems than they need to yeah well that is the problem isn't it and as far as um what i'm trying to make out this morning is a big deal i think it's quite important that no newspaper this morning is actually leading with a story about the coronavirus because i think we're all utterly sick to death of it susan and i know that you as a responsible politician will say to me look you know clearly there are people who should be concerned there are people who should be shielding people who are vulnerable and all of that but the bulk of the society in which we live particularly in london right now needs to get back to normal business needs to get back to going to offices needs to get back to buying coffee needs to get back to getting sandwiches for lunch and all of those things that keep this economy going isn't that the case oh it's completely the case and as the schools they must go back there's no question about that i mean there's there are three things we must keep watching our hands we must wear face coverings in shots and on tfl and we must keep our distances from people and the trouble is like you and i are complying to all of these things as are millions of others but unfortunately some people are not they're the ones causing the issues i mean i don't understand how khan insists that um people wear masks on on public transport in london for example uh transport for london and then won't make the bus drivers insist that people do that when they get on the buses as an example i mean you know if you're going to insist something's put in place then make sure that it's adhered to i don't know whether you've been on any of these um buses or trains but apparently there's so many people that aren't wearing masks and they're not in shops either which you know we could all help ourselves yes no listen i i have deciduously avoided public transport since the middle of march when sadiq khan decided it was a brilliant idea to actually cut the number of trains thereby increasing the numbers of people traveling on the train and and being in close proximity to one another however i have been on uh the trains a couple of times since uh the beginning of say july and i've been on a couple of buses and what i've seen is young people getting on buses without face masks but have obviously not been challenged by the driver because the driver quite rightly doesn't know if they're going to stab him well that's the other issue is it i mean crime on our streets is rising again i mean london's in a mess and quite honestly all that he can't ever does is blame the government he should look to you know his own situation he is the mayor of london he's supposed to be in control i mean no wonder he's not invited to cobra he just treats it as a press opportunity quite frankly exactly and he can't be trusted to keep conversations uh private and then he'll just do a tour of the tv stations once he's been there never he never stops at talk radio bizarrely but i mean i watched the videos i'm sure you did uh over the weekend of the punch-up in shore ditch high street uh which appeared to be something which was entirely just spontaneous uh a bunch of young guys punching each other kicking each other fighting in the street i mean if you were out and about with your family as i would sometimes be a few years ago you know that would be horrific and ghastly and it would make you sure that you would never come into london again and i worry that london has become this kind of wild west territory now because of sadiq khan and his inability to control the police crested the dixon ability to get the right numbers of people at the same time i think five people were shot over the same weekend i mean it's ridiculous isn't it oh it it is ridiculous and we need to get a grip on it you're quite right i mean people running businesses etc if they're running a business in an area that's well known for crime uh that will absolutely affect how they um they managed to make a living we need to get a grip on on the amount of kids that are out on the street with knives that's why i'm a massive supporter of stop and search um i was pleased in some of the clips going around i know you watch twitter a lot like that the police were actually wearing masks i was pleased to see that because they must be protected it's all very well you have all these gatherings the poor police have to go in there and deal with it well right um you know and they they're just as susceptible to this as the rest of us no listen i have total sympathy with the actual individual police officers but clearly the management of the police is a problem and crested dick and sadiq khan are guilty of being completely and utterly derelict in their duty in protecting the people that work for this city and apart from anything else i mean you were also commenting i think at the weekend on that ludicrous aspect of the uh you know forever family kind of sort of malicious style outfits that people were wearing in brixton uh funnily enough now i think the best thing that's happened is people are starting to ridicule them so they look more like you know the ymca rather than the ira and also somebody set it to the benny hill music now which actually is even funnier so i mean i've always said ridiculing people is a far better tool than actually beating them up so so good so good luck to those people that have done that but we can't see that on our streets can we surely that can't be allowed no we can't i've actually uh written to christopher dick about that because we need to know what they're going to do about that we keep turning i say weave people keep turning a blind eye because they don't want to be um deemed as offensive to anybody uh enough of this nonsense uh they are police they should be allowed to police properly and sick to death of carrots um you know carrots and sticks all very well but we're getting to the point uh we need to you know pull in this nonsense that's carrying on yeah and also you'll be i imagine uh susan you'll be privy to the statistics of of what covid19 is now doing to the country and my understanding is that while we are told that you know infections are on the rise in certain parts of britain you know hospital admissions are certainly not on the rise and i think do we is it not now time to delineate between you know the dangers of people getting it but also then the results of people getting it which do not apparently at the moment result in people having to go to hospital i tell you what the real danger now mike is is that people that have got other illnesses try and get an appointment with a gp i i dare you just try it's almost import impossible you can't you can speak to them on the phone but they won't see you in surgeries or lots of surgeries won't there's an awful lot of people that are going to have illnesses out there that are just not being dealt with so i think that really needs to go into the mix we need to get gps back seeing people yeah um there's so many other issues around kogan but the problem is that the government is down if it does and it's damned if it doesn't and at some point we're all going to have to face the fact that we're going to have to go out there as long as we keep to the rules washing hands face coverings keeping our distance then life should start going back because if not we're going to lose loads of small businesses other people are going to suffer from other illnesses we've got to get the grip of this and get back out to some sort of normality totally absolutely you're absolutely right to say that and finally uh susan i mean i've i've said this already this week yesterday to be honest on the show that we we seem to be at a sort of crossroads right now in terms of what government policy does next and if we don't go down the right road i.e the road which kind of reopens a bit more of the economy and we go down the other dark road which is to kind of be frightened to continue shielding and hiding and not going out you know that's going to be the death of london and you know as well as i do you know where we are here at london bridge looking out over borough market the tower of london you know there's p there's relatively busy streets out here there's people going to restaurants there's people going to bars but you go to covent garden you go to regent street you go to piccadilly there's nothing going on because there's no tourists i mean it's tragic but equally i mean we have to accept that it's the government's duty to keep us as safe as they it's can it's just such a difficult balancing act isn't it yeah i mean i've always been very jealous of very senior politicians because i'd love to be one but right now it can't be anybody that actually wants to have that sort of onerous task because as i've said to you before they doubt if they go and they don't if they don't and everything that they decide can affect lives which of course is is a very it's a very difficult position for them to be in yeah it really is and as far as um civil servants are concerned many of them are not coming back to work saying they're frightened to come back to london what's the situation at city hall i know it's a relatively small part of the jigsaw um but but are many people back working there or not no well because the the um building i think we're being told will only take 200 people um because of of limits to to spacing et cetera et cetera luckily a lot of the work that's done at city hall can be done remotely which it is being done at the moment i mean the biggest concern to us all as communities is to get teachers back into schools our children must go back because there's an awful lot of people that have got no child care and therefore it is difficult for them to go back to work then we've got to get the schools running we've got to um younger people have got to act responsive responsibility but get out there because they're less likely to be damaged so badly by this virus yeah um but we really do have to get back working and get things back to a more of a normal state absolutely right susan hall conservative leader at london assembly thank you very much indeed we do have to get back we are at that crossroads we are at that fork in the road i mentioned it yesterday i will mention it again today because let's face it when you get to a situation where the newspapers in this country are all agreed that actually the biggest story today has got nothing to do with coronavirus then you know that even they are getting bored with it we've had our lunch now let's get back to work is what it says on the front page of daily mail the guardian russians stole secret documents from ex-minister's personal email i saw andy dancing with epstein girl on the front page of the sun front page the daily telegraph russians hacked cabinet minister and that's the story about liam fox and don't give paracetamol to patience doctors are told on the front page of the times we have had enough of coronavirus we have had enough about writing about it we've had enough about talking about it let's get back to normal let's get back out there on the streets let's get back out there in the businesses that we run because if we don't do that there is no future there is no tax money there is no revenue for the government they can't do anything for heaven's sake you know i've been talking about this for a long time please go along with it i want to hear from you all of course because not only do i want to take your temperature on going back to work we're going to be talking later about how resentful people are of those who have gone back to work and those who have not but also i want to hear from you if you've been traveling if you've come back to this country and you've come through an airport or you've come through a port of some kind has anybody actually asked you for your details has anybody actually taken the time to tell you that you have to go into quarantine i don't think that's working i don't think there's any point in doing it i think it's a complete and utter shambles don't forget we are live streaming on face face time we are also live streaming on facebook i should say we are live streaming uh on youtube as well and on twitter 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life's journeys mid mid-morning with mike graham talk radio the independent republic of mike graham on talk radio welcome back to the independent republic of mike graham right here on talk radio don't forget later on today we will be filming plank of the week we did it last week of course as we always do every tuesday i'm delighted to say that we are now able to get back into the studio so that we can actually do it properly and i've got dawn neeson and uh steve and alan joining me this week so there might be a bit of a left wing tinge to it from steve allen because he likes to throw a bit of that around we shall see but that will be available later on youtube on the channel that everybody is now joining in and watching uh which is of course the youtube talk radio channel go there subscribe to it like it and you'll get plank of the week as well as all the other various different pieces of uh film and video that we put out throughout the course of the week let's go at the phones though oh three four four four nine nine one thousand i've been asking you whether you are now as i am sick to death of this coronavirus nightmare joel is in sydney hello joel hey how you going very well mate thanks for calling from so far away uh you guys are having some trouble down there in melbourne aren't you absolutely mike i'm actually based in sydney but uh i have to admit when the stage four restrictions were announced on i think saturday night for my for my fellow australians in victoria i have to admit i was absolutely infuriated absolutely infuriated i just to give you a snapshot because you guys know the uk statistics australia as of the start of this month we've lost a million jobs from the start of the year to from from the start of march to now and pretty much the whole reason we've just like the uk we've all gone through the the lockdowns we've just enjoyed a very nice open reopening of the economy and it's just about to be shut again which is just we can't we can't have this as i've been listening to you many times with peter hitchens yes well it's so disappointing because i mean until the manchester lockdown last week i was really of the impression that the government was beginning to see a way out of this and beginning to actually see that the most important thing was to get the economy back working people were starting to drink again people were starting to eat again outside people were starting to go to shops and then suddenly they do this reverse ferret and go oh we've got to lock everything down in in manchester and nobody's dying there's eight people died over the weekend here i don't know what your numbers are like joel but it's a total overreaction i have the numbers in front of me actually in terms of the actual amount of people that are in icus at the moment in victoria we've only got 38 people that's madness in fact in terms of the amount that are deceased in victoria it's only 147. right this is a nation this is a nation of 25 million people and the amount of men that have committed suicide this year is 1800 wow that is that is nothing and just like everywhere across the world the us the uk australia we've seen suicides skyrocket because of the lockdown the lockdowns are far worse than the actual virus they really are and what are they saying in victoria as to how long this will go on for this is perhaps the most depressing part of it all so they announced that it would be a six-week lockdown they said that a couple weeks ago they said there is no guarantee that that will be the end of it on the weekend they said we have stage four restrictions going into effect this week and already on day one yesterday was day one of stage four restrictions already the premiere down there in victoria the head of the state he's he's already alluding to stage five restrictions which i've i've never even heard of right i mean people can't even under stage four restrictions people can't even exercise at least we could do that before well they've got a curfew right so you can't even go outside after eight o'clock is that right exactly right good good on you for following it um well listen it's what i do uh joel tell me this do you also have that ridiculous kind of strain of people as we have in this country who keep popping up every now and again and saying oh you know we're scared to go out we don't want to go to a restaurant we're frightened to go back to school because you know there's a deadly virus do you have people like that we do but you know what i say to them look at the uk the studies in the uk look at these the studies from iceland from israel from the us from australia saying there is not one transaction there is not one virus that has gone from a child to a teacher for example the schools must and you know i i heard you the other day talking with peter hitchens it's quite hilarious the correlation between bars and and schools i i i can't i can't work it out well i can only assume the kids are all in the pubs because they can't stand their parents being frightened on their behalf you know that's the only thing that i can see is the correlation but listen joel delighted to hear that you're listening from sydney great that you are a follower of ours over in the other side of the world and please pass the message on that the good news is here you know basically i feel as if i'm some kind of evangelist preacher here uh because in the end we have to get back to normal you can't listen to the people who say oh we're so scared we can't go shopping i can't go to a shop why not put a mask on go to a shop buy yourself a new hat buy yourself a pair of trousers buy yourself a shirt buy yourself some bananas it's not gonna kill you for heaven's sake you know no doubt somebody will bring up now and go oh mike graham's spreading dangerous lies he's saying it's dangerous uh it's not dangerous to go to so it's not dangerous okay eight people died out of 304 000 who are infected as i said to you yesterday that is 0.0003 if you can work that out i can sell you a grain of sand from blackpool beach it's time to get serious it's time to get real it's time to stop hiding behind the sofa and take the cushion away from your eyes watching poltergeist is about as frightly as it gets for heaven's sake we need to get the economy back we need to start spending money we need to start going on holiday we need to go out for dinner we need to go out for lunch maybe even go out for breakfast and you need to go out for a drink and if you really think that you're so scared that you can't go outside when there's nothing wrong with you then you are actually insane let's get some news headlines here's ross powell talk radio half hour headlines scientists warning the uk is at risk of a second wave of coronavirus more than twice as high as the first if an effective test and trace strategy isn't in place by the time schools reopen in september researchers have based their model on an assumption that 70 of parents will return to work in the autumn which could add to the race of infection local government minister simon clark however says the current system can deliver we are confident that this system is is the right one and that is it's strong and getting stronger there is further work to do we know that we want to get the numbers up as high as we possibly can and certainly to all listeners if you are contacted by the test and trace service it is really vital that you uh you do self-isolated you're advised to do so well meanwhile the former prime minister tony blair has told times radio the system isn't working effectively we contest about 300 000 people a day we're not testing that anything like that number at the moment we're going to raise that to 500 000 we think we could raise it even further if you brought in all the different lab capacity an outbreak of coronavirus infections in swindon has led to the town reporting the largest spike in cases in england officials say it's being driven by a flare-up as a logistics company tens of millions of people in the philippines have been placed back into lockdown the new rules which affect manila and four of these surrounding provinces come as doctors for a surge in new cases there could push the healthcare system into collapse easyjet meanwhile has said it's operating more flights than previously planned due to a rise in demand the airline is expecting its schedule of 40 normal capacity between july and september compared to 30 percent it predicted in june and pizza express has said it could close around 67 of its 449 uk restaurants putting over a thousand jobs at risk it's part of a restructuring plan but the company stressed a final decision hasn't yet been made let's take a look at the weather a very wet start to the day for most of scotland northwest england and north wales there'll be some heavy downpours at times which is set to continue into the afternoon it'll be dry in the south with highs of 23 in the southeast talk radio your trusted 24-hour resource for breaking news and non-stop conversation this is a challenge and a difficult situation but we will work through it with employers unparalleled radio for unprecedented times we have tough times ahead keeping this virus under control online on dab and on the talk radio app talk radio mid-morning with mike graham talk radio the independent republic of mike graham on talk radio welcome back to the independent republic of mike graham right here on talk radio you know what to do uh you know how to get in touch because we want to hear from you you are the voices of independent thought you are the voices of common sense and we actually do care what you have to say we don't want you to call in so that we can ridicule you like they do in other radio stations we want you to call in because we want you to be part of the conversation oh three four four four nine nine one thousand is the number uh we'll be doing more of your calls very shortly let's go now talk to kate hardcastle uh it says here kate hardcastle mbe i had no idea i was in the presence of greatness kate very good morning to you hi michael i apologize for never referring to you as kate hardcastle mbe up until this moment now listen i think our friendship can survive it doesn't it's just difficult isn't it now um i don't know about you i didn't bother with the out to help out scheme yesterday uh i'm sure that uh it was it was carried out by quite a lot of people i saw pictures of certain people queuing up outside certain uh food outlets um was it a success would you say for day one speaking to a lot of different types of organizations and businesses some felt it had been a real boost and it had got people back through the door ready to try again to see if they were happy to sit in that environment because there's still a lot of concerns for many people mike about safety and 72 000 businesses registered on there everything from tiny little cafe associated with a steam railway that has seen no traction whatsoever because it's part of the tourist attraction uh through to the biggest national brands and it's been hit hard by criticism people suggesting that we're talking about obesity one minute and then we're encouraging people to go out and eat cheaply at menus that perhaps don't have the most um the most calorifically careful items on the menu and and i think at the same time 72 000 businesses suggest that people are looking for many different ways to solve the solution of a time that's been hit significantly so i think the jury's still out some people said they saw great take up some people just saying i would have expected this anyway but you know it's still a month ago yeah well i mean you know anything that helps people get out and about i think is a good thing generally speaking i wouldn't i wouldn't in any way uh criticize it however um what it won't do is convince people in big enough numbers i suppose to go to places where uh there isn't a place to go if you know what i mean because there are lots of restaurants in the centre of london for example that haven't even reopened because as far as they're concerned without the tourism trade there isn't any trade and that's it and also office workers not being back we're hearing from a lot of organizations that have big office units that they've spent a lot of their money enabling team members to work from home and they're not suddenly going to make a cut in that expenditure to bring people back in small numbers to office centers well office trade working lunches meals after work that's a significant trade for a lot of cafes and restaurants that just can't see a future in terms of even with this voucher scheme how can they get to the numbers they need to i mean we just have to look there's three stages pretty much for every business that's had some consumer facing offer that's been hit first and foremost there was a period of lockdown that they had to survive somehow secondly then there's been the cost of enabling safety measures which for a lot of organizations have been significant it's not a case of a bit of sanitizer and a face mask some of these organizations have had to spend tens of thousands hundreds of thousands repackaging their business and then there's a dip in terms of the actual footfall so it's a heck of a lot of stages to get through to still be surviving september october november time because of it so unfortunately i think we've got to be realistic that a voucher scheme is never going to be the cure all i don't think it's suggested to be that i think it's a stimulus yes and it's a stimulus for a certain part of the market as well because without wishing to be facetious about it i mean for me if i was going out for lunch to get 10 quid off whatever it was i was eating and or drinking is a pretty much a drop in the ocean it's all very well if you're going to nando's and you're going to get 10 quid off you know what you would have spent on 20 quids worth of food that's great and i'm not denigrating it but you know for a lot of people at the other end of the market that's not really going to do anything and yet there's the absolute opposite extreme of that of people who are saying well how ridiculous we we're just wondering how we're going to survive right now and there's been money funded towards people being helped to eat out when we don't even know how we're going to get eat in i mean the significant rise and rise of food bank so i think the challenge you've got is the first time probably most of our our lives that this kind of voucher scheme this very commercial offer from the government is just a a drop in the ocean in terms of trying to support so many businesses that have been brutally affected i mean we need to look back maybe just friday the beauty industry foreign instance a lot of small operators very small businesses who have been told they got the green light again invested in two weeks of recessing for business into a totally different way and then being told you can't actually reopen for another couple of weeks which has been devastating for many of them and they're saying well where's our voucher scheme how do we get going we've had another two weeks knock here i mean there's just not going to be the right solution for everyone i think it's going to be a combined offer but awareness all the time is is definitely helping no i'm sure that's right and then this morning we see a story saying pizza express saying it could close around 67 of its uk restaurants putting up to 1 100 jobs at risk um i mean i think for chains it's almost a worse situation than if you only own one or two restaurants in a particular locale because the chain problem uh presumably is that people are just not going to high streets all over the country well i can hear a lot of small independent businesses being up in arms at that comment mike because i think they'll say that they don't have the perhaps funding that some of the bigger organizations do and they're having to do it all from the bank of family but i think it's hard oh no but my point my point is though um the the you know yes of course i my heart goes out to those individual companies kate but but what i'm talking about is if you've got a chain business you know you've actually got more failings going on than you have successes so the first first and foremost for peter express that will include staff members who who were part of a family who are an income generator and this is going to be hard news to swallow once again because even prior to the pandemic pizza express were clearly marked as having challenges and they were going to have to re-modify the other side of the coin is someone somewhere has created a strategy where a lot of these chain restaurants have opened you sometimes in multiple branches in a town and city perhaps have you know driven the brand hard at a time where it looked like everything was rosy not really doing the long term picture of how sustainable is it when you've got such right marketing and competition to actually keep these these chain brands go and we heard about jamie not so long ago and you know we're hearing now about things like frankie's and benny's i mean i think there's a certain type of market that has only an amount of disposable income to be able to spend on whatever the latest brand of choices and it's going to be a certain type of meal and offering now pizza express had something a bit different going on if you and i as you know we're london based so it's a different type of um buffer sometimes in london they had the jazz nights they had this link to music it had the history and heritage but you know else elsewhere if you went to a preacher expressing different areas it didn't have the same viable so it was very much about um a meal out of a certain price point there was always offers associated with it which means then you're starting to drive down the price all the time and they're selling the same product in supermarkets for you to take home and he took so it was everything right in the strategy anywhere before we even hit a crisis time like this yes i mean i once went to a pizza express in eastbourne with my kids and they declared that they couldn't make us any pizza and i said why is that and they said we haven't got any pizza dough and i was like your pizza express and you haven't got any pizza dough have you got anybody that can make pizza dough it's not that difficult i said i can show you how to make it if you like just put me in the kitchen and it was unbelievable you know and this is the problem with these chain restaurants is that they have no heart you know they have a body and they have a sort of a blood system that pumps around the the food but what they don't have is any common sense it's a bit like photocopying something at some point the certain the print quality starts to wane and i think the thing is you can't just look at a chain that's successful and say right let's just repeat that format endlessly every town and city in the place what we've got to hope out of this and i know it seems a long long way in the future is that we actually start getting some vibrancy back in place and that places feel different you get off a train in the uk and it doesn't look like one generic high street in front of you it looks like a different place that's what we've got here we've got history we've got heritage and this is probably going to help survive that because i think we'll see more regeneration in the villages and the local places where we those of us working from home have started to populate again and that might bring out more indie businesses alongside the nationals of course we need the nationals but maybe you know there has been a question of some of the chains and brands have over expanded and it's just been too much yes i think you're absolutely right kate brilliant to talk to you thanks very much indeed kate hart castle mbe no less talking about the state of affairs at pizza express i mean there are plenty of people prince andrew might be among them who will not be ashamed to see the demise of pizza express but there will be plenty of people as well who know that the thing about chain restaurants is that you know what you're getting it's a bit like mcdonald's you can go to mcdonald's anywhere in the world and when you buy a big mac it tastes exactly the same as it tastes here as it tastes in new york as it tastes in paris as it tastes in moscow as it tastes in hong kong and that's what people like same goes for pizza express however i for one will not particularly mourn their demise if they are going to disappear but i will feel sorry for those people who work there and if you are one of those people by all means give us a call let us know what you're being told let us know what the management are doing and if they're not looking after you we will fight on your behalf trust me because we are the voice of the people oh three four four four nine nine one thousand is the number this is talk radio online on dab and on the talk radio app pork radio welcome back to sausage and egg mcmuffin and hash hashbrown in the middlers welcome back to red or brown sauce debaters and latte one sugar drinkers and welcome back to those who drive through we know you missed us we missed you too welcome back to the breakfast you love at mcdonald's take away the delivery or drive through [Music] served until 11 a.m subjects are participating restaurants opening hours and menu choices offridge feeling the heat washing machine in a spin don't let all our broken appliances ruin your holiday at home attio.com will make it the place to be this summer with the latest electricals with over a hundred thousand products ready for next day delivery so put your feet up we'll handle the rest at ao.com let's go terms and restrictions supply whether you fancy owning a swimming pool big enough to have its 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600 000 carried out every year at 350 garages you can always count on our experts and get back to visiting those you've missed the most hi mom from a safe distance of course from mots to battery replacements and tire fittings there's no job too big or too small halfords for life's journey across the uk online on dab and on your smart speaker late night with christo fufas on talk radio big topics big opinions big conversations and a place to have your say sophomore christo and let's put the world to rights late night with christophuffas weeknights from 10 on talk radio mid morning with mike graham talk radio the independent republic of mike graham on talk radio welcome back to the independent republic of mike graham right here on talk radio we are here of course until one o'clock alex stewart sitting in for ian collins who's away this week and of course uh we've got mark dolan sitting in for dan woodland who's also away uh this week uh i have to tell you something though which is uh very exciting some news which has only just been told to me and revealed to me in the last few minutes i was unaware of it and i resent the fact that i was unaware of it because i should have known better however i can now reveal to you exclusively that it is the birthday of somebody very close to our hearts here at the independent republic my birthday's not very far away uh it makes me a leo this person is also a leo which means that i have an awful lot in common with this particular individual and i can only tell you how happy i am to wish a very happy birthday today 39th birthday indeed to megan megan harry harry have you bought me a present harry harry what are those papers in england saying about my birthday happy birthday megan have a good time let's talk now uh to ellie phillips presenter and journalist of course a woman uh who herself has campaigned tirelessly for those people who have not been looked after by the government you might remember ellie was last on the show talking about the forgotten freelancers basically she's now started a fundraising appeal for the forgotten paye freelancers and i can only say how much in admiration i am of her elliot very good morning to you welcome good morning mike thank you so much for having me not at all listen last time we spoke you were kind of beside yourself uh because there was so much sort of horror going on around you you've not had the ability to make any income for quite some time you and and many other people as well this is a great idea because so many people do fundraising campaigns now and uh they do work quite successfully don't they yeah i mean fundraising campaigns are really great because not only does the end goal you know it obviously helps people but also helps to raise awareness and that's something that we felt was really necessary with this because you've got you know nearly six million people we estimate 5.86 million people have been excluded and you know as well as that it's not just the financial toll people know that you know finances are one of the things that people can get really really stressed about money makes the world go around and when you have your livelihoods taken away from you and that's not replaced with adequate support then you're left in a situation where you actually don't know how you're going to get through the next day um and it's now a crucial point where you know these mortgage holidays be paying um for by people who couldn't afford to take a mortgage holiday because they weren't earning anyway and they weren't getting support from the government and the stories of you know really desperate thoughts of struggling with depression with anxiety um and really really negative thinking they're just exploding and there's so many of them and we are inundated with them and as campaign organizers we thought right let's come together so it's you know i represent forgotten pyea but has also forgotten limited new start of justice maternity petition so women babies um who've been excluded somewhat and many others as well we've also got the the bbc freelancers po freelancers they were also forgotten and you know it's really devastating for everyone and we thought as campaign groups we tried so hard for so long to make the government listen to the financial crisis they're not listening but we've got the exclusive ppg who are doing amazing work on that front but now we're seeing that people desperately need ways to help them get through the fight that the mental health impacts of it and that's why we decided to come together as a campaign groups and launch mind the gaps and mind the gaps are aiming to raise one million pounds for samaritans the money goes directly to samaritans and basically the idea is that we can then sign post people who are really struggling to samaritans they're the experts you know it takes six months to train up a volunteer we are not experts but we're hearing these cries for help so for us to be able to sign post people to samaritans but also support samaritans at the same time because we don't want to overwhelm a charity with an influx of people you know putting a huge demand on their services without being able to support them to do what they do best and that's to help these people whether it's through their 24 7 helpline whether it's through their app you know they offer people you know they can listen to people and really offer them ways to help cope coping mechanisms because people that are struggling there are people who've had previous mental health problems but some of these people like i didn't even know what mental health problems were i'd never heard of them i didn't really believe in them and now they're like wow you know i've really been pushed to a point where i feel unable to mentally deal with the situation that i'm in through no fault of my own um and the themes that running through are really really similar so you've got a lot of people obviously the financial stress how am i going to pay the bills people who have dependents who feel like a failure which they shouldn't because they've you know worked all their lives paid taxes they're just being let down by the government and and then also feeling gaslic you've got to remember this is five months in now and richie's still holding the line that everyone's had some support which we know isn't true and so they're kind of like but i know i haven't had support but i've been told i have support so does that mean i don't exist so it's questioning their reality which is what gaslighting is but what about i mean are the government actually denying you access to talk to them or are they when you do talk to them just saying we can't do anything or are they saying well we we've tried to do something and we can't do it i don't understand why they're being so difficult here honestly mike i feel ya so in the first instance it was saying that they kind of quibbled with the figures you know we don't know how many people then it got to the point after the treasury select committee released their interim report that they said okay yeah there are people they fully acknowledge for example that pye freelancers have been completely excluded from both of the two main support schemes then the treasury select committee came out and said well you need to do something about it you know like what are you gonna do and they basically came back and said no we have to look to the future now but how do you you know how does a plane take off without fuel we've got people who can't afford to go to an interview i have you know i'm just just me for example lots of other people have done this but transferred a bit of money to someone who we had an interview in a coffee shop for a new job because her old company let her go she had no help through this crisis she's a mother of two and she said i don't have enough money in my bank account to pay for coffee and it's in a coffee shop so and that anxiety of feeling embarrassed that you're and it gets declined when you know and this is and she's trying to get a job and she said i don't know if i've got enough petrol in my car to get to the interview this is the position people are in they want to work they want to you know they want to do things but they're being left with absolutely nothing so yes rishi sunak has acknowledged that some people have fallen through the gaps but he's still insisting they've had some help which just isn't true because you know a lot of people can't access you universal credit a lot of people i i can't even access job seekers allowance for example if you're a pye freelancer and but some of your income comes through invoicing and an invoice was paid late which often happens that's being counted as if you've earned for that month even though an invoice you did the work in january if you're getting that invoice paid now then they say well you're over the threshold you can't get jobs allowance so you have people who actually have nothing and then they're saying but you know you've got mortgage holidays and you've got rental you know whatever but you know that in reality that's just debt that's just accumulating debt and now people want that money at a time when you're asking people for money you haven't earned for five months you've had no support for five months the stress of dealing with that is horrendous you've got people selling their homes people selling their cars you know people relying on children to help them to eat food banks we all know that food bank usage has gone through the roof um and and then now the kind of taking that toll four or five months of that you're now having really severe mental health crisis which we know is going to overwhelm the nhs which is why we want to step in now and try and help people immediately with us with a charity that's been set up and run is so amazing do such incredible work and we want to be able to find post people you know because we are not experts and so rishi tsunak has has basically said no i'm not doing anything we're looking for the future now so you know we've helped so so that's kind of so it's not going to change well tell us uh just uh finally ellie tell us how to uh people can donate to this particular crowdfunding scheme so if you would like to help please go to www.justgiving.com forward slash mind the gaps all the money goes directly to samara since it goes directly to them no one has anything else to do with it it goes to them it helps them to support people who desperately need that listening ear at the moment and those coping mechanisms to get through this really really difficult time and it costs samaritans five pounds for every phone call so if we raise that one million pounds we can help 200 000 people who really need that help at this time you know if you've got that money to spare and you you've heard these please for help you've heard these interviews where people are really really struggling that is in our opinion the best way that you can help them in the media okay brilliant ellie thanks very much indeed you're doing great work and i really appreciate i'm sure the people really appreciate that you're fighting on their behalf it seems ridiculous to me that the government is still failing to recognize that these people who have paid taxes into the system are not getting any help at all it makes no sense to me whatsoever one of the few things that rishi sunak has got wrong he needs to get it right uh this is of course talk radio uh you can of course tell us your stories uh you can of course share your problems and we will try and fix them up for you let's go to the calls now phil is in milton keynes wants to talk about wasting money hello phil hello mike thanks for having me on not at all just i think you know boris johnson needs to really start acting as a prime minister you know the first responsibility of any prime minister is the for the country to function since he's been in power this country has come to a grinding goal okay not but well since growing a virus let's get it right but the thing is the first thing he needs to do is to stop all this ridiculous waste of money in testing yeah and it's testing for what so you people you know that you've got you know you've had it but so what you know at the end of the day there are hardly any deaths now from coronavirus so so what is the point in in proving that there are further people you know that's proving positive it doesn't matter it's irrelevant no you're absolutely right i mean and also what's interesting is that is the mixed messaging because oliver dowden you know the culture secretary was on the radio towards the end of last week basically saying testing is not the silver bullet this week apparently it is the silver bullet no i mean you know sky news this morning i actually swore at seven o'clock this morning i said ever off you don't want to be watching that rubbish well i'd never like to get the headlines you know that's what i do i just now switch on and listen to the airplanes and then switch it off and i do it for bbc and blah blah blah but and again they're still hyping up this ridiculous talk about oh you know in the autumn we're gonna have more testing and tony blair was on there this morning saying we've got to expand testing what's he gonna do with him by the way can anyone explain to me i mean if i was contacted by tony blair's uh spokesman would you like tony blair on your show to talk about the coronavirus do you know what i'd say no thanks absolutely but but the crucial point for me ringing mike is that at the moment the cost of this furloughing and all the rest of it that has cost with the country because boris johnson has been spending money like water and it's not it's not his money this is public our public money right these little taxes that we that go towards running this country and essentially he is wasting that money he is crippling it away for paying people to stay at home he's given two billion quid to a bunch of cyclists so they can fix their bikes up great and this ridiculous notion of the 10 pound voucher no don't you know stop telling people to wear a bloody mask i mean if you go to sweden you know for months and months and months you don't we'll not see a mask anywhere but people just don't have them they're going about their business as normal you know that's what we you know they need to send that a news crew out into sweden for a couple of days and show how life it should be now all this business about 10 pounds if you've got people back into the city of london we wouldn't they wouldn't need to be offering these these you know come back to the restaurants the people will naturally do it it's just ridiculous waste of money yeah and it has to stop and boris johnson all i want to say is start acting as a prime minister and say look no you you spying my slot there are going to be diseases you know this happens this is part of life you know you cannot deal with it i think you know here's a new slogan for the government deal with it yes what do you think i like that i like it i think we could go with that brilliant cool phil fantastic call phil is a man after my own heart deal with it that's the message from the independent republican mike graham got a problem deal with it worried about coronavirus deal with it want to go out for a dinner deal with it want to stay in deal with it just deal with it this is talk radio talk radio wherever you go disney plus goes i'm aboard explorers download and watch the very best of disney and pixar wherever you are all yours for only 5.99 a month and beyond at home in the car at the zoo on the train at the park take the adventure with you all these and more now streaming disney plus 18 plus subscription required tsmc supply starring brett frank's the nifty 50. goodness [Music] [Applause] [Music] gracious numbers just got bigger and better download the app to play and remember folks keep it fun be camelaware.org [Music] talk radio coming up in the next hour we're going to have the next installment in the strategy that we have here at the independent republic to deal with serco the company which has been given multi-billion pound contracts from the government to do a whole host of things including housing a bunch of illegal migrants in various hotels up and down the country nigel farage broke this story for us last week we are continuing to investigate and we will bring the latest on the story uh coming up in the next hour also joe hemings is going to join us to say why some staff at workplaces who have gone back to work actually resent those who have not gone back to work hardly surprising and why the weather is going to be so hot this week that you should be very careful about walking your dog let's get some news headlines from ross powell across the uk online and on dab talk radio on the hour headlines on the way it's 11 governments insist schools will reopen this autumn a rise in demand for air travel while over a thousand jobs at risk at one of the uk's biggest retail chains talk radio news scientists are warning the uk is at risk of a second wave of coronavirus more than twice as high as the first if an effective test and trace strategy isn't in place by the time schools reopen in september researchers have based their model on an assumption that 70 of parents will return to work in the autumn which could add to the rate of infection here's local government minister simon clark schools are going to reopen in full in the autumn that is not up for debate there's always more to be done and you know we're very honest about about the fact this is a challenge and you know there is a massive role here for the public in helping us with this process meanwhile the former prime minister tony blair has called for a minister to be appointed with a specific job of improving and overseeing the uk's test and trace system the former health secretary stephen dorrell has also told talk radio that a lack of an app-based system in the uk shouldn't be a reason for alarm other countries in the world have developed test and trace systems which are significantly more effective than ours have been using very traditional techniques technology is great when it works but until it works we have to rely on the the more traditional techniques which simply rely on people asking questions and remembering the people that they've seen during the relevant period pizza express has said it could close around 67 of its uk restaurants putting over 1 000 jobs at risk it's part of a restructuring plan but the company stressed a final decision is yet to be made easyjet meanwhile has said it's operating more flights than previously planned the airline is expected expecting its schedule to 40 percent of normal capacity between july and september compared with the 30 percent it predicted in june and three men have been rescued from a tiny pacific island after a giant sos sign they wrote in the sand was spotted by a plane the trio had been missing for three days after putting after setting out from pull watts atoll in a boat in july the 30th talk radio national weather the wet weather scene this morning across scotland north west england and north wales is set to continue i'm afraid there'll be some heavy downpours at times which are set to continue into the afternoon drier in the south though with highs of 23 in the south east talk radio from the case files of miss maureen118212 the case of the replacement rodent a woman called asking for the number of a pet shop she needed a new hamster before her son returned from school i didn't ask what happened to the original hamster best not to know some things [Music] for directory inquiries call maureen on one one eight two one two calls cost 250 per coal plus 75 p a minute with a minimum one minute charge plus your phone company's access charge across the uk online on dab and on your smart speaker the independent republic of mike graham on talk radio [Music] good morning welcome back to the independent republic of mike graham right here on talk radio welcome uh to day one as i said earlier of the rest of your life because for the first time in five months as far as i can remember this morning's newspapers aren't actually leading with stories about the coronavirus this whether you know it or not is a massive step in the right direction what it means is that the great messages of our times are getting fed up with the spin fed up with the statistics fed up with the warnings and fed up with the predictions of how terrible this worst pandemic that's ever been is actually going to be and how it's going to turn out that must be the reason right it couldn't possibly be that they just can't think of anything right to write about anymore uh why else would you explain that the newspapers are literally bored with coronavirus as are most of us i'm afraid coming up in this hour we're going to prove that by talking about a great many other things including of course the great story uh which was unveiled to us by nigel farage last thursday uh which is that 48 000 migrants illegally having arrived on the shores of this country are now being put up in hotels up and down the country thanks to a very very lucrative contract handed out by the government to serco which is a public service company privately owned privately manufactured privately profitable and privately doing whatever it is that they like to do up and down the country without fear or favor we're going to talk to the taxpayers alliance about this in a moment but we'll also tell you what serco have said to us because we've approached circo to come on the show they have politely declined but they have given us a statement and we'll leave you uh we'll leave you to make a judgment on that uh in a moment oh three four four four nine nine one thousand coming up later on we'll talk to joe hemmings behavioral psychologist about what it is that uh people who come back to the workplace are resentful of guess what it's those who don't come back to the workplace and we'll be talking to all dogs mata about why it's very dangerous to walk your dog in very hot weather it could be as bad as locking him or her in a car as you go shopping oh three four four four nine nine one thousand you're listening to me mike graham right here on the fastest growing radio station in the land it is of course it's already mid morning with mike graham talk radio now as you know uh yesterday we were speaking to a former mep from the brexit party about serco and exactly how much public money is actually funneled through that company which is owned by nicholas soames his brother a man by the name of rupert soames he's the ceo of the company it seems to me that if you were running serco you would basically have a license to print money because what you do is you call up the government and you say oh hello this is circo oh thanks very much indeed we knew it was you because you've got a direct line into the home office would it be possible for us to run um the situation whereby you transport prisoners from one prison to another or indeed from one prison to a courtroom or from a police station to a prison or from a police station to a courtroom could we have that contract please uh yes absolutely no problem at all how much is it worth about 10 billion thanks very much indeed could we also have the contract to look after the prisoners on probation so that if for example they get released from prison and they are given an electronic anklet or an electronic bracelet so they can be monitored by the probation service could we get that contract as well of course you could absolutely no problem at all uh could we also get the contract to look after people who have been deported from the country yep that's no problem at all could we also get the contract uh which involves housing people who come here illegally who arrive on dover beach who arrive on hastings beach who arrive on the beaches of pet level um would that be possible could we have that contract absolutely no problem at all i mean it beggars belief doesn't it i don't know whether there's any kind of tendering process for this maybe i'll maybe i'll form a company and say i'd quite like to look after all these immigrants who've come here illegally i'll put them up in a hotel i'll take two billion pounds over the course of the next five years if that's all right with you well i don't think it is now here's what we got from serco yesterday after we approached them about what they were doing with regard to all of the illegal migrants coming to this country and housing them in hotels up and down the country we basically said to them could you please inform us of how many of these people you are housing and of how many of these people are in hotels and for how long they said this thank you for your email i'm afraid that we will not be putting up anyone for interview on this however can i correct a couple of things please we do not as you say house and support in quotes illegal immigrants we have a contract from the home office to house and support asylum seekers as you will appreciate that there is a significant difference between the two they then say you can find more information on our contract here and they send us a link on where their contract is i also understand that earlier today your presenter said that serco manages the dlr although i did not hear that myself this is not the case serco ceased operation of the dlr contract in december 2014. hope this helps well i'll tell you what serco there are three problems with your response one the presenter is me my name is mike graham and you better get used to hearing it because i'm going to be on your tail until i get some answers secondly i didn't say that you ran the dlr contract currently i said that you ran the dlr that does not mean that you currently run it it just means that you ran it and that's true so that's not a correction third these people that you are housing are illegal immigrants you might think they're asylum seekers but they're only asylum seekers because they came here illegally and then sought asylum that makes them illegal immigrants you complete an utter idiot so whoever you are mr uh so-called spokesman for serco we've got some news for you we've got new questions for you today we sent them back to you today this is what the questions are could you please tell us how many asylum seekers you are providing accommodation and support to and in which areas of the uk number two do you anticipate housing more freshly arrived asylum seekers over the course of the next six months and if so how many three what on average is the cost of housing an asylum seeker on a weekly basis best regards mike graham the presenter now if you don't answer us this time matey we're going to come and stand outside your door and we're going to knock on it and then you're going to come out and we're going to film you not answering the questions how do you like those onions okay this is public money you're dealing with and this is the public you're dealing with and i represent the public and if you don't give us an answer mate you'll be out of a job get it let's talk to duncan simpson from the taxpayers alliance hello duncan hi there mike how you doing not too bad i'm already sick to death of serco i'd quite like to see them absolutely torn down from that hideous little pedestal they think they stand on taking public money for doing the square root of nothing quite frankly except ruining our country yeah it's a real danger quite previous companies and ultimately you know private companies involved in doing stuff on behalf of the state often works very very well but the risk of companies like circo and other big ones like g4s and a capita is that effectively they're an arm of the states yeah you're getting so much of your revenue from central government often and quite often through local government too then it becomes weirdly symbiotic and for us it's very it's very annoying it's very difficult because ultimately you know if we are oh how much did you give you know a particular company the circo g4s for this kind of contrast why did you give them that contract how long is it going to last what else often happens is that a central government department will turn around and say well commercial sensitivity we can't tell you this because it you know went up to a normal contract process so two or three firms might competed for it but they'll say oh well actually if we tell you this then it might disadvantage future procurements and obviously because they are private companies we can't ask private companies about the contracts that they've received from uh ultimately from us from taxpayers so it's it's very difficult and ultimately you know with an enormous company there's a huge amount of things i think the boris bikes tagging systems that you should run laboratories for the government facilities management for lots of nhs hospitals um so it's a huge company but you know the impression i'm getting from this contract is that um you know it's really not very well thought through and actually there was quite a telling line in their press release yesterday and it reads the final contract value will reflect the actual service user volumes so in other words it's 1.9 billion pounds ish over 10 years but we don't actually know the final cost because it's conditional and how many asylum seekers forward slash illegal immigrants are actually going to be making use of these services right well clearly and this is why i've asked that very question today how many more asylum seekers do you anticipate housing over the course of the next six months and how many of the asylum seekers they are currently housing uh do they anticipate housing for the next six months i.e is it an open-ended contract i.e uh is there a number at which they have a ceiling uh or are they actually encouraging the illegal human trafficking of these people into this country because it's in their interest to make profits for the shareholders yeah it's it's difficult to say i mean ultimately yeah a lot of public procurement projects are just complete disaster zones i mean we went into i think we went to about 10 last year big ones like tens link crossrail the carriers west coast electrification for example and just selecting those ten projects i think the combined cost as very time overrun was just under 33 years and the cost overrun was over 17 billion pounds right and that's just a small selection if you look at the i think 32 big major projects which the government are currently undertaking which some of those have just alluded to only five five out of 32 are going to be delivered on time the government is just woeful at this kind of stuff the nhs is a really key example at the moment the nhs test and trace app which i think the um the quango was called nhs x i think it is one by this ex diploma like matthew gould they wasted i think almost 12 i mean i think 12 or 30 million quid trying to do this before realizing that oh actually there's private companies who are quite capable of doing that i mean that guy if he was in the private sector matthew gould obviously should have been fired straight away that hasn't happened don't know but we shall be sticking to that i mean it's it's you you see these kind of problems emerging time and time again so yes i mean serco this contractor seemed to be devious but this is the thing of the wedge in terms of the government messing up time and time again with this contrast yeah and i think the problem here is that you get these large companies like serco who basically exist purely and simply to rinse money from the government there is literally no business that they do which does not involve government money so therefore they somehow put themselves up as the people who can manage all sorts of government projects because um you know the blair government sort of set these these big companies up and more or less said look we will outsource it to you it will no longer be the government's responsibility um and they have got i suppose what you would say is a legacy so that whenever they go to the home office or the department for work and pensions or for example um i don't know the foreign office they can say oh look this is what we already do why don't you give us this to do as well and it's a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy yeah i think that's definitely the case with the very very largest companies i think there's there's sort of ways that the government does some requirements very well on a much smaller scale so if you look at some of the big pictures of the the average profit rate across all uk companies with the latest base it was just seven nine percent um it couldn't be quite a few the train companies the franchise franchisees i mean someone do it really badly and some of them do it very well i think the average profit margin is two or three percent so i would definitely push back against a view which is usually positive by the labour party in both of the left which say that oh well ultimately you know all private companies do any kind of work for the government they're just profiteering they're just exploiting taxpayers there are instances of that certainly don't get me wrong i mean bae systems um i mean they're just complete cowboys with i mean have those others on the carrier strike system but you know putting forward this position which i think i think corvona mcdonald came up with last year basically doing this you know nhs drug service just you know get rid of the private drug companies or not get rid of it just stop using their drugs and just we'll just take it in-house i mean that's completely absurd proposition you're just having this you know junior minister for drugs in the you know east of england uh nhs services i mean we also i mean we also know in the in the case of circo they've been involved in quite a few controversies over the years you know they were caught up in that sexual abuse scandal and one of the immigration detention centers which they were running uh they've been in trouble in scotland because they were trying to evict people who were asylum seekers out of properties that they were running you know they haven't exactly got a spotless record and yet that doesn't seem to have any effect on whether they get new contracts to do anything yeah as i said i'm quite haven't covered themselves with glory and i think i think this has gotten worse over the years because you've got this expansion of the quango state so ministers will say well it's not my responsibility because ultimately it's the responsibility of let's say nhs england yeah the time and speed and the supervision i think they will turn around and say yes we've messed this up slightly minister but we're going to go on to it so that you know central government departments are more and more removed from the impact of the decisions which they take and how our money is spent on those decisions what needs to happen with with these kind of contracts um and many other areas of the state is that ministers need to be held directly accountable for decisions which they are ultimately responsible for just hiding behind the guys as well it's a private company so it's not our responsibility to make sure that money is spent effectively um just cannot cut the mustard so bring bring the responsibility much closer to the minister and hopefully these kind of these kind of decisions would become much more transparent and this is the other situation that i'm looking at here look at the board of directors sir roy gardner rupert soames angus coburn john rishton kirsty bashforth eric bourne ian l mocha dem these are all what i would regard as professional executives right they sit on the boards of all sorts of different companies they have very little responsibility uh personally and they simply are on the gravy train making an absolute fortune thank you very much indeed and they don't even have to work for it yeah it's as i said original point there's a very dangerous symbiosic relationship with these with these firms and you'll see you must see a lot of um former civil you know senior civil servants as well he might have got a ridiculous payoff even though they have been fired just basically retiring yeah we'll then go on these boards and there's there's one quango called akova i think the advisory committee on business appointments and to to my knowledge i don't think they've specifically prohibited either a former minister or a former senior civil servant going off relatively quickly to go and work in a company which they might have been directly overseeing that's a a client which might have been directly overseeing or a company which they had would have had a contract with um and that and that those things there's a clear revolving door and until westminster says enough of this you can you can't export that kind of relationship to your own personal financial gain these decisions will keep coming up again and they'll uh look again in the wrong yeah and i'm picking on serco right now because they happen to be in the eye of the storm but they're not the only company you mentioned capita uh we had marillion uh who were carillion rather meridians are banned isn't it uh carillion who went who went bust and uh you know there is this kind of secret society almost which is what i object to the most about the way governments run where nobody talks about it you know when did you last hear boris johnson mentioning this company circo and how much money they're taking out of the public purse it's quite extraordinary to me yeah it's also the way i mean slightly you know boring project point but it's often the way this is presented in government accounts so you can't easily discern how much you've gone to you know either an individual company or has been you know moved to different sources of doing that obviously pfi was a really big issue about 10 or 15 years ago i think actually on balance psi can work pretty effectively there are some there are some instances where it's gone completely disastrously but again well it can work but my objective my objection to it it's not because i object to people making money because i'm very much in favor of private individuality but what i am objecting to is the ability for somebody to sign a contract and to do nothing other than wait for the money to roll in from the public purse i just think it's morally wrong yeah no entirely right um but as soon as we could if ministers are held held talk out much more on this then theoretically these kind of decisions shouldn't be happening at the same time you're just pressuring these companies to get a huge portion of their revenue from taxpayers needs to be a regular daily occurrence and for them everyone else just sit well you know go off and try and do some kind of element of the contract which i've been awarded um is not sufficient so we've got you know we've got tools to do this national order office which is quite regularly parliamentary committees do this quite regularly but to put it on a much more um systematic basis is the way to avoid these kind of fuck-ups in fusion yeah i think you're absolutely right great to talk to you thanks very much indeed duncan simpson there from the taxpayers alliance circo uh are as far as i'm concerned in the eye of the storm right now and what they need to do is to stop refusing to talk to me uh they need to come on this show and they need to put themselves up for some rigorous questioning because quite frankly the way things are going uh they are a disgrace not only to this country but to the taxpayers who fund them to the government that somehow gave them these contracts and you need to come out open your eyes step out of the cave where you count your money and justify what it is that you're doing tell us how many illegal asylum seekers illegal migrants whatever you want to call them are being housed by you at our expense where they are how many of them there are how many of them you expect there to be by the end of the year and we want answers and we want them now and if you don't want to give us answers that's fine we'll just keep pursuing you until you really really really wish you'd given us answers in the first place this is talk radio talk radio say hello to summer data deals at vodafone get the samsung galaxy s25g with double data 48 gigabytes for the price of 24 for 51 pounds per month plus 19 pounds up front just one of the amazing offers in the vodafone summer data deals switch to the uk's best mobile data network online or in store ready vodafone ends third of september 24 month plans 5g subject to coverage rpi increased credit check terms and award verification apply see vodafone.com uk whether you fancy owning a swimming pool big enough to have its own yacht or just a yacht big enough to have its own swimming pool what you need is dream come true money luckily in friday's eurominions there's 10 uk millionaires guaranteed now that's dream come true money here are millions from the national lottery play online on the app rules and procedures apply traffic and travel west midlands and the lanes closed on the m6 southbound from junction 6 a spaghetti junction to junction five at castle bromage it's the inside lane that's closed on the m1 through northamptonshire the northbound side from junction 15 a to junction 16. so around by northampton it's slow there they're going to do some recovery work and in hampshire on the a34 the recovery work is now being completed by the win all roundabout that's the latest i'm gary scott mid morning with mike graham talk radio the independent republic of mike graham on talk radio welcome back to the independent republic of mike graham here at talk radio we have much to do uh we're here of course until one o'clock alice stewart is in for in collins he'll be here all week uh we've got mark dolan in for dan wooten as well uh lots more for you to do as well so call us of course oh three four four four nine nine one thousand dez he's in luton hello dez how you doing mate i'm not in luton i was in luton when i called originally all right from coventry okay sorry about that well what can i do for you well uh the other day you you asked us to sort of write to our local mps regarding the illegal immigration issues yes i wrote to mine i'm allowed to mention her i think she should yes please do her name is colleen fletcher okay she's an mp for com computers and her reply to me was yeah illegal illegal immigrants are not entitled to welfare support as such those who are providing accommodation or health treatment are highly unlikely to be illegal immigrants oh yeah he a very long journey here right i've got patience for it and i'm sure you have as well and the first answer they're going to give you is not going to be a satisfactory same as serco they said to us oh well they're not illegal immigrants they're they're asylum seekers well actually they are illegal immigrants they became asylum seekers after they touched down on the beach because they decided to claim asylum but they entered the country illegally that makes them illegal immigrants doesn't it that's right mate and can i say that i come from a family of legal immigrants from ireland who came here after the second world war right so i'm not an unconscious covert racist no of course not and that's the point none of us are my point is as nigel farage's point is it's all very well saying you know we are a welcoming country to people all over the world yes we are but you can't just come here whenever you feel like it go through the proper channels apply to come here and we will vet you and decide whether or not you're a scumbag or a criminal or somebody who's nice and is going to contribute to the economy and that's our decision to make not yours wouldn't it be interesting to see if any of the johnson clan have any shares well i mean they may well have that's not so much my interest really my interest is in these people who think that they've got the divine right of kings to just keep us at arm's length not answering my questions i'm afraid they're going to be making a massive mistake if that's what they think they're going to get away with maybe we'll be better off with kings mike uh well maybe we would dez listen a great call thank you and do what dez did write to your mp ask them the question and if they try and fob you off and say oh but they're not illegal immigrants because they're not entitled to help they must be asylum seekers do what i've done with serco okay then if you don't want to call them that let's call them asylum seekers let's play your little game and while you count your money you can think of an answer because here is the question how many asylum seekers are being put up in hotels at our expense in your constituency that's the question you put to your mp and you see what you get back and soon enough the tidal wave of people power will sweep these people out of office i promise you that let's talk to nigel who's in north london hi nigel good morning it all is very well all is very well i'm up for the fight i'm feeling as though circo are messing me about so uh now i've got something to bite on i'll be happy for at least a week well of course in your business in my business no no or always always prompts a more vigorous response well exactly exactly they think you're going to go away you know you know nigel when you knock on somebody's door and say do you mind if i take your picture and they say go away they think you're going to go away but you don't absolutely absolutely but my my beef isn't with circo's commercial interest about this problem my beef is about the home office westminster city council i'm talking about from from another perspective i'll tell you why in the moment yes and the met police failing to police this problem in london there's a number of camps been set up around park lane around mayfair around maori bone and years ago i went out with the police and with the romanian police who came here and the immigration service to deal with these problems but it's just being allowed now it's being allowed to carry on and carry on and i see people today what they do is they're hiding their bedding in telephone boxes that are not being used come back and connect the evening but no one's stopping and checking who these people are right and so if no one's stopping and checking who they are this problem's never going to go away well it's not and also i don't blame the individual asylum seekers i don't blame the individual immigrants because of course they're going to come here if they hear the story that they can come here and have a better life and no if you want to live on the street nobody's going to bother you if you get put up in a hotel that's great too don't worry you'll be able to make some money you know i don't i don't blame them but that's not a good enough reason for the home office to be handing multi-billion pound contracts to this serco operation uh who are literally there as a license to print money no i i see your points of view but i also think that the the element of people who come here whether if they're coming here uh without purpose and they don't have a legitimate reason and they're basically basically coming here as a legal person then this problem if it's not at least properly and looked at and checked it's going to continue it's going to get bigger and it's never going to be able to be redressed no of course not because one once you let a bunch of people into your country from another country they will get in touch with the people in their old country and say it's great here you should come and they will come then why wouldn't they exactly i think if you ever get a chance to walk along park lane an early morning yeah from marble arch down glance to your left past a couple of the car show and then glance you're right in the middle you'll be in for a bit of a surprise could you not the next time you pass them suggest that they set up camp in the cycle lane that's just been put up i mean that would be a good place to go and then you kill two birds with one stone well i've said something i've just been photographing that again and the cycle lane for those who don't know has another cycle lane next to it running parallel so why do you need to put to build that ridiculous unbelievable just unbelievable nigel listen great cool thank you very much indeed nigel who's in the same business as us uh he does a lot of photography with the evening standard uh amongst other people uh here's the bottom line for me i don't blame people for wanting to come to this country to make their lives better i don't blame people for being economic migrants but what we must stop is that human trafficking the fact that there are 15 million pounds being made per six months by human traffickers in europe who are getting these people onto dinghies there will be i'm sure at some point a loss of life because something bad will happen but the people who are making the most money out of this are the human traffickers who are criminals usually part of organized crime in europe 15 million pounds they've made in the first six months of this year charging up to 5 000 pounds a time to over 3 000 people who are now living here as opposed to living wherever it was that they came from they are now being put up at further expense to the crown and to you and me by the home office via serco who are putting them into hotels up and down the land in york in london uh in bronze grove in newcastle in cheshire in cheshire chester i should say in glasgow just unbelievable and those are only the ones we've known about since the last three days when people have started reporting into me that this is what's going on it's an absolute disgrace it's an absolute shambles the government is making an absolute dog's breakfast of it the home office is not fit for purpose the border force doesn't know what it's doing and now we are having to bear the brunt of this ludicrous policy and it's going to get worse and all i want from serco is an explanation as to what plans they have to deal with it and if they don't want to answer me that's not going to end well for them this is talk radio let's get some news headlines from ross powell talk radio half hour headlines scientists are warning the uk is at risk of a second wave of coronavirus more than twice as high as the first if an effective test and trace strategy isn't in place by the time schools reopen in september researchers have based their model on an assumption that 70 of parents will return to work in the autumn which could add to the rate of infection the former health secretary stephen dorrell has told talk radio that schools should be able to change the way they operate as rates of infection change in specific areas in circumstances where in a particular community there is a developing outbreak it seems to me entirely possible for schools themselves to change for example you don't have full a year groups mixing and you have the classes mixing meanwhile the local government minister simon clark insists schools will reopen in september easyjets has said it's operating more flights than previously planned the airline is increasing its schedule to 40 percent of normal capacity between now and september compared with the 30 percent it predicted in june meanwhile though there'll be no two holidays to portugal until at least the end of next week the government's advised against non-essential travel to mainland portugal since march the 17th due to coronavirus pandemic and pizza express has said it could close around 67 of its uk restaurants putting over 1 000 jobs at risk it's part of a restructuring plan but the company stressed a final decision is yet to be made and thousands of school pupils across scotland are finding out their exam results this morning students were unable to sit tests because of the pandemic and their grades are based on teacher estimates martin mclaughlin who's the politics and education correspondent for scotland's edition of the times says a number of factors were taken into account during the marking process they were decided based on the people's performance throughout the year one of the good things about curriculum for excellence of scotland curriculum is it does include an element of continuous assessment so it's not all um a kind of high stakes race to the final exam so there is a body of work that they can draw on um including the prelim exams and also the course work that they've done during the year and they'll use that to estimate a grade look at the weather there'll be the wet weather we've seen this morning across scotland north west england and north wales is set to continue there'll be some heavy downpours at times which are set to continue into the afternoon drier in the scifo with highs of 23 in the southeast across the uk online on dab and on your smart speaker late night with christophuffas on talk radio big topics big opinions big conversations and a place to have your say sophomore christo and let's put the world to rights late night with christophuffas weeknights from 10 on talk radio mid morning with mike graham talk radio the independent republic of mike graham on talk radio welcome back to the independent republic of mike graham right here on talk radio uh i've calmed down a little bit since my earlier rant about serco but i have not forgotten uh why i got worked up in the first place and i will be continuing uh to be on serco's case if they think i'm going to go away they don't know me very well if they think that proper journalism in this country is dead and buried and they can just turn a blind eye turn their back and everyone will just give up that's not the way it works in the independent republican mike graham i'm afraid but let's talk to joe hemmings uh who's another honorary member of the independent republic because we're going to talk about returning to work we've been having this conversation really now for about at least the last three weeks where i've said people need to get back to work into their offices people need to repopulate london people need to repopulate these high-rise buildings at canary wharf over the river from me the cheese grater the walkie-talkie the gherkin all of the great high-rise skyscrapers that i can see out my window here uh in the studios high above the thames if the people don't come back then i'm afraid um the economy is finished but it turns out that not surprisingly the people who do come back feel a little bit resentful to those who do not let's find out from joe why that would be joe very good morning to welcome good morning mike thank you very much for joining us i mean i suppose we shouldn't be that surprised that if people who come back to work because perhaps they are forced to or perhaps because they feel they have to might feel a bit resentful for those who don't i mean that's always been the case even pre pandemic really when anybody's had that sort of flexible working or allowed to work from home there's always been that resentment now of course you layer it with perhaps the fear of uh you know anxiety over being more exposed to to kovitz but they've got to go back to work that resentment exponentially increases uh so yeah you totally understand it yeah i suppose so i mean what's your view of the people who um are saying they're too scared to come back to work or they can't think about coming back to work i mean they tend to be for me without wishing to be in any way making sweeping statements and generalizations middle class kind of namby-pamby types and yeah look okay i mean they they probably are they're probably all sorts i mean i understand the fear but i also totally understand that we know we've got to get life moving again and maybe for them uh dwelling on for the positives of going back to work uh going back to work in an office is where they need to be i mean you get you get more support uh you know from your team in an office you get that a change of scenery you know for a lot of people working from home they're at home so much so actually sometimes those lines of blurred between work and home life and actually having a changing scenery and a change of seeing people is a good thing i think there's probably a greater chance possibly of of your career going in a good direction if you're going into work having you know face-to-face interactions um so that there are some really positive things about going back to work for people and that you know in an office and that's what they need to to focus on as opposed to the sort of resentment of people that that are at home and have those lines very blurred for them well that's it and we do seem to have sort of um divided up as a country into those people who seem to need instruction on almost everything that they do for example if the government says you know you have to stand on one leg for 10 minutes every tuesday at 10 o'clock they would do it and then they would say but what do we do next week you know whereas there are other people and including myself in this group who would go do you know what i'm actually not going to do that i think that sounds a bit idiotic so i'm not doing it on tuesday or any other tuesday yeah i mean there are because we were sort of very much propped up uh with it sort of quite well there weren't always clear instructions but there were certain instructions uh for a long time and people got dependent on knowing what they should do and when they should do it of course now we're in a different place you know it's incredibly muddled um and so what people generally have to think is look i i'll form myself as much as possible of the risks out there and i will be sensible about it and do what i feel works for me uh with it without taking you know any greater chances than than i feel i can and that's really how we're now leading our lives but there are people who are stuck in that place that say well you know i don't have a briefing anymore i don't have a clear idea of what to do and fear will drive them back to effective self lockdown yeah that's the only way they can deal with it i mean is there a personality type that actually prefers um the situation where they only do what they're told to do they don't have to make any decisions really for themselves and they quite like the fact that they can stay at home and not go out anywhere a lot of it has to do with how how much you're wanting to take on risk or how risk-averse you are so that that's really where it is if you look at the people that really don't want to go anywhere or do anything and and constantly feel that concern they're probably people who don't take any kind of risk in their life and at the other extreme um people who who like to take a chance will be the ones who are pushing the boundaries for themselves so it's that sort of it's that element of your personality i think that drives it right and i mean i would say without fear or favor that those who take risks tend to be the entrepreneurs of the world the people who are kind of out there as the kind of alpha males or alpha females i presume there's a similarity between the two and and both men and women who do take chances who do put themselves out there who do take risks who are the achievers in life and the kind of i mean i may be being incredibly unfair to them but those who seem to want to sit around at home for me are sort of the followers and the people who don't really ever contribute a great deal to the greater good i mean i agree i think you're absolutely right uh to an extent i also think people who uh you know it's about quality of life people who want to sort of you know what is a life if you're literally trapping yourself in your own home constantly out of fear uh there is no you know for people who who want to take a chance there is no it's worth taking because there has to be some sort of quality in your life yeah so yeah you're right it's those people who are willing to be bolder who generally get on anyway and it's once a perhaps your followers who it's it's about a sense of security and it's a sense of of risk as i say but i think it's beginning to change i think people hope so perhaps because they're forced to but also because they're seeing other people don't they haven't seen this you know any pain in the sky hasn't yet fallen in uh we may not be in the best place uh we could be but nevertheless baby steps for some people are beginning to happen now which they certainly weren't a couple of months ago well i'd like to think so but then again i thought that until this week when things started to go a bit backwards again when you know we got the chris whitty uh uh you know memo which was all about how terribly frightening we should we should be to every frightened we should be and how you know there's another spike in manchester we've got to shut it down and you just think you know the long-term psychological effects of this on people yeah it's not going to be good no it's a real rollercoaster and the problem is to get the balance right between you know awareness sufficient information and awareness and not making people over anxious is a really really fine one and because this is evolving constantly and we're getting bits of news here and there about local lockdowns or whatever it might be on numbers going up for those who still have the fear for that fear that's never gone anywhere that of course just makes that much deeper and for others it can make them more reckless because you think well i'm taking this window of opportunity before it all goes crazy uh to do what i want to do so you get it gets more polarized as we get these little pieces of information and it feeds on our fear and it very much depends on how resolute you are as a character how how you know how you think you can manage it best if you don't know how to manage it best for yourself when it's a frightening place to be yeah i think that's right and and so i mean would you advise companies i mean i don't know whether you do advice companies you may do um how this should be done how they can manage it because i know i've heard different stories from people saying you know the bigger the company the more likely it is to put sort of you know the safety measures in place but equally also the bigger the likelihood is that if they say for example employ i don't know 10 000 people like some of the ones in canary wolf do they're only allowing 200 people back into the office because it's cheaper that way yeah i mean it's an interesting conundrum and also you get this phrase over and over again you know covid secure or covered safe well that may be in practical terms uh they've implemented everything they need to implement but that doesn't necessarily totally reassure people psychologically so i think those firms need to have someone you know if you're feeling wobbly go and say it go and say and see if there's something that can be done on a personal level to make you feel a bit more secure even if that feeling only lasts for a couple of days particularly when you first go back to work that's really tough for a lot of people but after a few days when they realize okay i feel all right it's okay things are being done that need to be done and i feel more relaxed it will get better but so covered security needs to be you know a mental health issue as well as a practical um implementation yes i think that's absolutely right joe thanks very much indeed joe hemmings behavioral psychologist there's no question in my mind that if you are one of those people who is too frightened to go back to work one of those people who's too frightened to go out of the house or to get onto a train or to get into some kind of public transport listen you know there's nothing wrong with you feeling that way but somehow the company that you work for has to help you through that they have to convince you that actually there's no reason for you to feel that way because there's nothing really to be frightened of there's nothing really to fear except fear itself coronaphobia was a phrase that we came up with yesterday uh trevor cavanaugh wrote about it in the sun kevin o'sullivan's talked about it i've talked about it people have said that word coronaphobia because that is the more damaging thing than the actual coronavirus itself people's fears about what it could do are far worse than what it could actually do and i think that is where we have to measure sanity versus insanity and you need to get back to work you need to get back to a situation where you can earn money properly rather than just being given it by the government and you need to get back to a normal situation of going out buying a sandwich buying a pair of shoes getting a haircut all of the things that you used to do before all this happened and if you are one of those people who's stuck indoors and you can't go out because you fear going out love to tell i'd love to hear your opinion about it i'd love to hear why you feel that way oh three four four four nine nine one thousand we will not bite we will not give you a hard time we will listen to you uh and we will take your point of view because that's what we do here at the independent republic of mike graham this is talk radio across the uk online on dab and on your smart speaker talk radio disney plus invites you to test your disney and pixar knowledge are you ready see how many of these iconic movies you can name oh infinity and beyond we're on the brink of an adventure just keep swimming adventure is up there even miracles take a little some people are worth melting for whatever your score now you can relive those moments and discover many more with all the best disney and pixar movies all yours for only 5.99 a month all these and more now streaming disney plus 18 plus subscription required decency supply get revved up for a new kind of chat show cruise into the weekend where star names are queuing up to be part of the conversation don't miss driven with andy j on talk radio in association with paramedics digital proud creators of drivenchat.com join me andy j for the show that finds out what drives celebrities and achievers and what they drive driven with andy j every saturday afternoon from four on talk radio in association with paramedics digital you dream it we bring it to life find out more at drivenchat.com talk radio traffic and travel derbyshire on the m1 the southbound side from junction 29 chesterfield to junction 28 and mansfield helene is closed because of recovery work also on the m1 through west yorkshire around junction 40 around wakefield there's a lane closed on the southbound side that's the chair it's the m1 southbound from junction 12 atletic towards dunstable where they're doing some recovery work in the west midlands on the m6 fellaini's closed southbound between junction 6 spaghetti junction to junction 5 at castle bombage i'm gary scott julia hartley brewer at breakfast on talk radio join me julia hartley brew up every morning from 6 30 with an essential mix of straight talking debate heavyweight political guests and fearless comments julia hartley brewer at breakfast weekday mornings from 6 30 on talk radio mid-morning with mike graham pork radio the independent republic of mike graham on talk radio welcome back to the independent republic of mike graham we are uh if nothing else uh tenacious here on the independent republic uh and i'm after circo and i will not rest until i get answers from them but what i tell you what i've just worked out and i've just found out that they have rather a lot of people work with them do you know how many people work for serco in all of the various areas that they indulge in they work in local government they work in national government they do stuff for the home office they do stuff for the department of work and pensions they do stuff for the department of defense uh they run ferry services they run gyms bizarrely they for some reason operate gyms up and down the country i don't know why they do that uh they do all sorts of maintenance of nuclear silos incredibly i mean literally the list goes on and on and on and on and on they employ wait for it 50 000 people right that's twice as big as the bbc which you thought was overgrown and full of people that don't need to be working there fifty thousand people serco s e r c o if you want to write to them by all means do ask them what it is that they plan to do with all of these illegal migrants that they call asylum seekers how many of them are there how many of them are they housing and how many of them do they expect to house in the coming six months i think it's fair enough to ask the question isn't it it's called journalism let's talk about dogs though now because one it's one of my favorite subjects and two uh we're gonna have some pretty hot weather again coming up this week it was really really roasting at the weekend friday i tell you what when i walked out the building here on friday afternoon and when it was 35 degrees in london i thought i was in mexico city or something i mean it was almost that heat where you can't quite catch your breath it's so hot that you can't really actually breathe properly coming up this weekend it's going to be hot again and a report has come out uh in which it has said that basically please do not walk your dog in the hot weather because it could be as bad as locking the dog in the car let's talk to ira moss who's the ceo of all dogs mata ira very good afternoon well morning to you i should say afternoon morning to you thank you thank you very much indeed now i've got a labrador um and a friend of mine's got a labrador and my friend's labrador's very susceptible to heat because he's a bit more kind of my labrador is quite lazy so he doesn't really exert himself terribly much but but the other one uh who's black as a black lab uh runs about all the time and he gets to the point where he literally i mean if you're if we're looking after him you're worried that he's gonna have some kind of a seizure because he's you know his pants he gets that hot and that excitable in the hot weather yes i mean obviously black dogs are going to attract their coats are going to attract the heat um more than say a yellow lab um plastic a sort of running strain so um or a working strain but um it is going to be even hotter i think it's 35 degrees on friday or something yeah it is yeah um and there is a of us that are lucky enough to maybe live sort of by the heather by a pond the dogs can go swimming that that's great as well but i do bear in mind that if you can imagine when you're on a beach and that the sand is really hot when you're walking from the sea back to your your nice bed um dogs paws if they're walking on the pavement or rather than the glass that is really really hot for their little pads so do avoid pavement always take um some water with you you can get these great little uh water dispensers for dogs now and any of the sort of pet shops were online so please take those with you that you can sort of even not just drink you can throw over the back of their neck there's some great cooling um sort of body suits and little scarves or wet flannel you can put on their back but the main thing is just don't walk them um particularly the flat-faced dogs that are so popular now they've become so fashionable the pugs and frenchies just just don't walk them it is what we'd advise and i'm sure vets would advise and so many people um have bought dogs over lockdown which kind of isn't great as well as we're concerned as a rehoming charity but they don't really um understand or maybe not been to puppy training schools because they've been closed and they don't realize that dogs just don't really want to or need to be out you know temperatures over 25 degrees no i was going to ask you is there is there an actual number because obviously um i suppose in the northern hemisphere where the dogs are not used to the heat um it's it you know they they you can you can i mean i can see my dog just kind of struggling with with anything you know and he just he just lies there he finds some shade we try and keep him out of the sun um it's good that you say you know just keep them sort of wet and even just hose them down every now and again if you can or if you can get them to a pond sort of you know early evening um but you know animals are very clever and they're very resourceful and you'll see you know when you're abroad particularly dogs and cats will lie they will naturally lie in the shade they don't want to go out they're very clever and they will go and lie in a cool area they don't want to go out you know just don't force them cars again we all know about sort of dogs dying in cars um so if you are going in a car keep the um keep your windows down or the air con on but but really we'd advise i mean i'm i'm not a vet we're very homing charity but i'm sure and i don't want to give the actual temperature in case i got it wrong and someone screams at me but we would probably advise sort of over maybe 23 degrees particularly as you say the heavy coated dogs like labradors that have got sort of huskies and and the you know flat-faced dogs or any dog really but but just be sensible you just take a bottle of water for yourselves um you know make sure you have water on you at all times because dogs can quickly um drop their temp you know they temperature can drop and if you're in the mid a park somewhere and you're not your car and you need to get them to a vet because they've got heat exhaustion it's going to be very tricky to carry the dog back and find a local vet over the weekend depending on the size of your dog particularly if it's a large breed just just be sensible and again think of their little their pores on a on a hot surface you know just feel the pavement um you'll you'll feel that the temperature rise on the pavement and you know think think i try and sort of sort of say to people you know you know think of yourself by a swimming pool or a beach in a hot climate how how hot your your souls your feet can feel when you're running back you know to um to get to your bed because it sounds so hot yeah i was going to ask you i mean one question is if you don't walk the dog on a particular day because it is so hot is there a problem with that because you know how they love to walk and they do have their exercise and all that but i guess if you if you don't do it for one or two days it's not the end of the world right well you can of course you can walk them but just go out really early so sort of go out by eight to nine o'clock maximum is what we'd recommend and you'll normally find on i'm the house city so you'll always find in any of the dog friendly areas that people there's always a higher amount of dog walkers out when it's going to be really hot earlier in the morning and again maybe after seven seven o'clock in the evening when it cools down a bit it's obviously dogs still want to go out and they need to go out and if you're not fortunate enough if you say live in london or a city and you haven't got your own garden you're in a flat of course you need to get your dog out but just be sensible and go out before nine and it's probably maximum nine just don't you know don't go out at midday when it hits at its highest point and i again after seven o'clock in the evening when it cools down just be sensible really right and i mean without wishing to make your dog look a bit dopey i mean is it worth if if you are going to a very hot beach because you want the dog to to sort of roll around in the surf and get a little bit cooler i mean can you can you get little socks for them for the for the pads or is can buy um i mean there's so many things you can buy online at for dogs or anything really i'm sure if you go go online you can get you know like when they cut there as a dog i know you know if they cut their paw or they go to the vet you have to buy those little boots um but i think you can get little socks as well so yes you can i'm sure you can get um stuff online i'm not sure that the names and and the brand but they will be available and there's some really good cooling maps yeah um cooling maps do um special like little bandanas that will cool that keep cool while you're out um so there are some great things nowadays that you can buy online however we would still stress i mean beaches probably at midday probably won't allow there's probably certain beaches that won't allow dogs anyway so you don't want to drive somewhere today get to the beach three hours later and find that you can't um take your dog out and then you know you obviously can't leave them in a car because chances are i mean it's easy enough to find out whether the beaches are open i mean down in sussex for example you know there's sections of the beach in bexhill where i go where you can't take the dog but then there's loads of sections of the beach where you can yes yes and you know labs obviously love water and i'm sure if you you know there are areas in london and if you giggle online that have got um dog friendly ponds that that you can go to um they're probably going to be busy you don't want too many dogs in a pond together because they may end up having a little sort of rail possibly but it's just that say at the moment there's so many new dog owners that have bought dogs and haven't been able to research for whatever reason and they haven't been puppy classes open and vets are very limited so they they as new dog owners may just not understand that so i think it's i think for kind of hardcore dog owners like ourselves that had maybe dogs for years or a long time i think what we're concerned about is lots of new novice dog owners that i thought oh it's locked down great it's going to be warm let's get a dog and haven't really thought about it and just really don't understand yes no i think that's very good advice ira thanks very much indeed ira moss the ceo of all dogs mata and of course you can i think ira probably actually knows kevin o'sullivan because i know he does a lot of work with all dogs mata uh in addition to us doing a podcast with the thought police we also do dogma uh which is the thought police uh with dogs actually um and we haven't done one for a while but we are due to do a couple more we're going to do uh carol deca actually from topow uh with her dog uh and we've also got lawrence fox to do with his dog but i think he might be away at the moment but uh go check it out uh you can get it on itunes you can get it on a cast as well uh you can find it on twitter it's called dogma the dog podcast uh also the thought police which is out today you can find that as well we've got much more to do coming up in the next hour of course there is loads of loads of opportunities for you to talk to us because we've got loads of calls to take oh three four four four nine nine one thousand we're gonna go live to spain where georgie frost uh is currently marooned because she can't get back because of the quarantine uh she's a personal finance specialist she's gonna be telling us what the situation is in spain but i want to hear from all of you as well because we've already heard some of you this week saying that you came back from your holidays and nobody bothered uh when you got here to ask for your uh your the the form that you supposedly filled out online you're supposed to show it to the people as you come through passport control but nobody bothers looking at it nobody bothers finding what you've said on it nobody bothers actually working out who you are now what i don't know is whether just by virtue of the fact that you have come through passport control that somebody has somehow on the border force marks your name down marked down your passport number marked where you live and possibly has already entered your name to the system that may well be but what i don't know is whether you are then being checked up on by various individuals who might be calling you on the phone who might be telling you that you need to stay at home or who might be checking up on you at random by showing up at your front door to see whether you are staying at home i don't think any of that is happening but i need to know from you whether or not it is oh three four four four nine nine one thousand is the number this is talk radio talk radio surprising them with a happy meal is bad thanks mom drive through mcdelivery and takeaway now available served after 11am but delivery of participating restaurants only see website for details starring bedfrags for nifty fifty goodness gracious numbers just got bigger and better download the app to play and remember folks keep it fun be gambleaware.org the obvious choice for bathroom walls we have a huge selection of high quality bathroom panels to give your bathroom an impressive new look visit cladtech.com [Music] we've got lots of great tweets coming in as well which i'm going to read out to you a momentarily as soon as i can actually find them his lots of you are actually sending me notes about which mps you've written to which mps have written back to you carolyn says thanks for asking questions about serco on behalf of us peasants at least you bring the j back into journalism i will write to serco well i think you should all do that because serco think they can get away with anything that they want to do and i've got news for them absolutely that is not the case manson says this about dogs the easiest way to do it mike is would you go out in this heat in a fur coat and barefoot if not don't make your dog do it well i think that's fair enough and james says hi mg circo have multiple contracts with mid sussex council until december the 19th uh mid sussex mp was nicolas soames the circo business plan needs low-cost low-skilled work labor and when someone's an mp he did everything he could to stop brexit and continue freedom of movement could it be a coincidence interesting point we'll be looking into all of that uh maybe we'll try and get nicholas symes on to talk about his brother rupert and his big business employing 50 000 people at serco absolute scandal in my view oh three four four four nine nine one thousand here's ross powell with some news headlines across the uk online and on dab talk radio on the our headlines thanks mike on the way at noon former pm calls for a minister for test and trace an upturn in demand for air travel and over a thousand jobs at risk at pizza express talk radio news scientists are warning the uk is at risk of a second wave of coronavirus more than twice as high as the first if an effective test and trace strategy isn't in place by the time schools reopen in september researchers have based their model on an assumption that 70 of parents will return to work in the autumn the former prime minister tony blair has told times radio that somebody within government needs to take responsibility for scaling up the test and trace system we need to have one senior political figure with the right team of people alongside them that is focused on this and nothing else building mass testing capacity so that is the first thing i think the second thing is we're not using all the capacity that we have tests that are being used in the private sector at the moment they're not used by the government i don't think we've got the right community organization meanwhile sue atkins who's a parenting coach and former deputy head teacher has told talk radio that parents need more guidance on how they can stop their children from spreading the virus when they go back there's not enough research to really know what is the impact of whether children may not get it as much but they may be carrying it so i can see that it's very confusing and i think it might be a good idea for the government to produce a leaflet for all parents and teachers and school workers and not be you know sort of muddled up about the thinking be very simple but be very clear so everybody knows what's expected and what to do easyjet has said it's operating more flights than previously planned the airline is increasing its schedule to 40 of normal capacity between now and september compared with the 30 percent it predicted in june meanwhile though there'll be no two holidays to portugal until at least the end of next week the government's advised against non-essential travel to mainland portugal since march the 17th due to the pandemic pizza express has said it could close around 67 of its uk restaurants putting over a thousand jobs at risk it's part of a restructuring plan but the company stressed a final decision hasn't yet been made the retail expert kate hardcastle says the company can't blame everything on the current pandemic it was very much about um a meal out of a certain price point there was always offers associated with it which means then you're starting to drive down the price all the time and they're selling the same product in supermarkets for you to take home and he took so it was everything right in the strategy anywhere before we even hit a crisis time like this and the ub 40 singer duncan campbell is recovering in hospital after suffering a stroke a statement from the band said the 62 year old is up and about and doing well campbell who's from birmingham replaced his brother ali as lead singer of ub 40 in 2008. talk radio national weather for the wet weather scene this morning across scotland north west england and north wales is set to continue with some heavy downpours at times drier in the site though with highs of 23 in the south east talk radio across the uk online on dab and on your smart speaker the independent republic of mike graham on talk radio [Music] good afternoon and welcome back to the independent republican mike graham right here on talk a radio we've been talking about a great many things this morning uh including of course the fact that not one of the newspapers this morning pretty much uh has mainlined or led their newspaper on anything to do with coronavirus nothing to do with traveling nothing to do with hospitalization nothing to do with vaccines nothing to do with drugs it's almost as though they've become a little bit tired of it all surely that couldn't be the case could it it's entirely possible uh maybe that's the new policy from the government bore everybody into submission just keep saying things which are so tedious and so pointless that eventually people will go enough already just leave me alone just don't talk to me anymore about it we've been talking about serco as well we're on the case we're going to find out precisely what it is that they're up to precisely how much money they're making from us and precisely what they plan to do with all these illegal migrants coming into britain on dinghies into the shoreline and basically being driven in coaches to hotels around the country where they are then put up at taxpayers expense uh for the rest of time it would seem nobody's telling us that's not happening so let's find out exactly when and where it is happening oh three four four four nine nine one thousand in this hour georgie frost is gonna join us from spain uh where she is marooned currently since the quarantine laws were changed she's going to tell us what the latest is from that part of the world also we've just heard that tui has cancelled all flights into portugal uh until at least next week on the grounds that portugal is still on the naughty list we'll find out from georgie whether that's likely to change anytime soon oh three four four four nine nine one thousand also home schooling coming up uh we're gonna learn about how the american election system works because that of course is coming up in november unless donald trump manages to postpone it uh we're gonna get a very straightforward explanation of how the electoral college system works i don't think very many people actually understand it you're listening to me mike graham right here on the fastest growing radio station on the planet it is of course it's already mid-morning with mike graham talk radio now it's time to take a little trip over to a more exotic part of the world i mean it's quite exotic looking out on the skyscrapers of london here uh and the river thames and hms belfast and tower bridge and it's all lovely however what i have to tell you is that it's not cartagena uh as i've been told to pronounce it uh where georgie frost was last week i don't know if she's still there this week georgie very good afternoon to you a very good afternoon to you has producer marta been uh teaching you how she has without giving too much away i saw a very um lush looking picture of you kayaking at night in the sea um on instagram you're having a whale of a time it's not like being marooned at all is it um no my poor niece and nephew keep saying auntie georgie's stuck in spain and there i am yes and moonlight kayak events and all sorts of things on the beach and the like and this certainly was a decision i came out here of course before um all of the restrictions were imposed the seo saying all the non-essential travel and the quarantine rules so that happened about four days when i was here and i made the decision just before because you get wind of these things and i thought i'm going to extend my trip a little bit longer because let's be honest i don't really as much as i like my flat in london i don't really fancy spending 14 days quarantine there not being able to leave to buy food when i can be kayaking looking at a full moon off the coast of uh cartagena yeah it's really not it's not a bad choice to have to make but but tell us i mean what are you hearing about the uh the the sort of the longevity of this quarantine situation um we hear that uh once a week now basically the government's gonna give us an update but i don't get any sense that um this friday they're gonna be lifting any quarantines in fact they might be imposing more precisely look mike your guess is as good as mine from here in spain i'm still continuing to do my work and i'm continuing obviously to read what's going on back at home but you'll have probably have a better idea than i will about this but all the suggestion when they added i like how you called it the naughty list added spaying to the naughty list and there was speculation that the cost of this would be so huge that don't expect this to last very long but now of course we're getting very last-minute decisions about the north of england and other places as well in the uk we had over the weekend lots of speculation about ideas of the over 50s being locked down i hear that that's not now going to happen or london lockdown or they're trying to avoid having a second wave and containing any issues so what they were also so if you believe the newspapers suggesting or mooting the suggestion of and i imagine most things are on the table at the moment is taking everyone off the good list and putting them all on the naughty list so where i thought that maybe if i stayed a little bit longer and we'd booked flights back on the 31st of august that hopefully it would be done by a week two weeks i think that's highly unlikely i think it's more likely you're going to get the canary islands and baleric islands um okayed to travel i think for mainland spain especially when you're reading the newspapers at the moment over here they are testing more but they're getting more results of positive coronavirus tests and until that can be managed the government is not going to risk it because they've already taken what i think is rather a nuclear decision when they decided to to impose these regulations on spain right i mean i keep asking the question here um and the only answer i get is that there are no increases significantly in hospital admissions i take it that's probably the same in spain you know so while there is this kind of panic about the uh the spike in in in more infections if people are not actually being admitted to hospital then you know it's not that big of a problem surely well i mean i'm i'm no health expert so i'm not sure what is a problem and what is not in regards to the health but certainly in terms of the numbers and yes it's not quite the figures that we were having before in terms of mortality rates and it is very similar here and we're also getting over here the concentration of those cases in certain areas and this is where we were hoping that perhaps uk would follow a german model and perhaps go for regional as we're actually doing back home rather than locking down the whole country rather than quarantining for the whole of spain why not do the regions that are most affected for example catalonia region where barcelona is that would be i think better for certainly for tourism in this country and also for people's confidence wanting to travel i was really interested to read the news uh the easyjet have upped the number of planes its capacity to 40 percent uh they thought it would be 30 of normal capacity obviously still very down but that was a surprise that people still want to to travel despite all of this so there is still that demand and i think if we're trying to get the economy back on its feet we need to find a solution that is not such a blanket but but i don't know what evidence they're working on and their main priority here right now is to restrict the second wave yeah i think people are just beginning to take the law into their own hands georgie to be honest because i know that uh they've upped the number of flights easier i think to portugal where at the same time tui we just heard on the news have scrapped all of their holidays to portugal until at least the middle of august so i think people who want to go away are just going you know what the hell with it we haven't had a holiday we didn't get away easter because we were stuck in the middle of the pandemic we're going on holidays to portugal or spain and we'll deal with the consequences when we come back and maybe some of them are even thinking if i go now it might well be that by the time i finished a two-week holiday that there won't be quarantine anymore yeah um i wouldn't necessarily go on that thinking with my personal finance and consumer head on at the moment i would say if you are planning on going away the fco restrictions are very important because if you have travel insurance and i please hope you do have travel insurance while it may not cover you for coronavirus if you've had if you've got it out after the pandemic struck then it would invalidate your insurance so you're taking a huge risk to go for the fco if it's just a quarantine issue then you must speak to your employer before you travel they are absolutely within their rights to suspend your pay when you get back or for you as it were to take extra holiday for that they should already have a process implemented i would urge any business that doesn't to please think about what you will do with staff who have holidays booked but speak to your line manager if you can work from home then i would also suggest why not take as i've done your equipment out to wherever you're going so that you could perhaps do some work should you need to stay because i had flights booked and those flights have been cancelled so it may not be up to you when you decide to come back and of course you do have to think about those quarantines quarantine issues a lot of people like you said will probably just not bother and that's the sad reality of it so the government needs to be a lot clearer i don't know as i said look i'm in spain but from what i understand there's a lot of deep unease back home about some of these measures the speed in which they're being brought in the thinking behind them and we do have to as a country and i'm not saying that this is in place of a health issue but we do have to think about how we're going to get back the economy on its feet otherwise that isn't of itself an issue for people's health you know we've already had issues of domestic violence and suicide and of poverty which is is inevitably going to happen as a result of this unless we can try and get some confidence in not just the travel industry in all industries no i think that's absolutely right i don't know whether you've seen a story in the times today uh about a norwegian cruise line that was apparently due to launch expedition sailings around the british coast next month has had to suspend its operations uh because of a kovid 19 outbreak i mean i can't imagine anything worse than getting on a cruise ship at this point uh in time but i suppose some people like that kind of thing yes some people do like that kind of thing i have to say in the best of times it's not really my thing no but it is a bit strange that this this was planning to go ahead because you can't imagine a more it's like a melting pot i suppose of of coronavirus and i know that we've had it in the past certainly uh during the lockdown and before that there were a lot of ships a lot of concerns where i think it was in japan a number of people died on on a cruise and i just think it to me it doesn't seem a sensible suggestion it's going to be very difficult to social distance but like you said people do like to cruise but um yes yes it would not be my first choice at the moment no and certainly not on this particular cruise line and as far as the kind of uh the rest of europe goes i'm seeing um anecdotal stories georgie from say different countries where um you know germany for example will take a slightly different attitude uh to people going to portugal portugal you can go to from germany and you don't have to quarantine on the way back is there any danger that that we might all just get some kind of a similar um you know all across the board agreement about this kind of thing or is every country just out for themselves so i think we can base it on the fact that in the uk the reason that the government adds countries to this list is because they're going on their own testing service and how countries are managing the situation now that will be different to every different country they'll have different health services different approaches and yes i don't think we're going to get a situation at the moment because the agreement that that would have to take would be enormous amount of cooperation and we the point with this is speed and that's why you're seeing the government incredibly speedy some might argue a little bit too speedy at times but yes indeed this is um i think it's going to be a situation where it's going to be country by country's uh circumstance which then makes it very difficult for travellers to know where they stand and what they're going to do and also the travel industry as well right and presumably the same rules apply which you've always explained to us very well which are that if you cancel a flight you don't necessarily get your money back if the airline cancels it you do exactly yes indeed and i would say to anyone who hasn't had it's not just airlines or any package holidays if you haven't had them cancelled yet then if you can then wait because if you cancel it yourself it's viewed as something disinclination to travel they call it you may not get any any insurance back any cover back for that what airlines are doing at the moment is certainly my airline easyjet that i'll be using has allowed you to change your flight for free to anything you want to that's quite good because i managed to change it for a more expensive one so even though they haven't cancelled one of the flights i can still change it whereas in the past you would have had to make up the difference so if you are in a situation like this and you're not sure perhaps you are um you've booked separately you've got an airbnb my first board of call would be to call them up call up your travel provider see what can be done also call up uh your travel insurance provider as well to see what you are covered for i'm not going to tell anyone not to travel it's been a very very hard lockdown the travel industry need support at the moment but i will say dot the eyes cross the t's be sensible yes i think that's right and just finally if you've got i say uh you've booked an airline flight you've got a hotel booked we haven't paid for the hotel yet um can you leave it until the last minute before you pay for it uh and i mean unless you've been told that you know you've got a week's grace or something like that um a lot of hotels will not worry unless you actually if unless you're told to pay for it up front you can always just pay for it when you get there can't you yeah absolutely absolutely you can do that you can do that um there's a few things that i'll add to that is if the hotel is likely to be open that's fine when i came out here i didn't want to have a huge outlay i knew something like this would happen so actually i was staying with family and friends but that wasn't the plan the plan at the start was that i'd stay in a hotel then i looked at the price for a hotel for 10 days and thought do i really want to make this commitment now i'll make the decision when i'm over here now not everyone can do that but it might be worth and i wouldn't do this if you have kids if you're a solo traveler like me then this is absolutely fine i fly by the seat of my pants so i'm not really that bothered but i'm happy to go out somewhere uh for a couple of days take a look out when i'm here and then book a hotel from here i'm comfortable doing that but i wouldn't suggest that's necessarily the way forward for everybody but the point with that is last minute we always told in the past book in advance and then you'll get the cheaper deals i think now and while we have grown up it's the short term that is probably going to be the best so if you haven't booked a hotel i would check that they're still going to be open so it might be worth going for a better known name but you will find there's no problems i'm checking on airbnb i'm checking on hotels.com and all the others there are still plenty of hotel spaces and you might be able to if you call them up get a better deal you know a few extra bits thrown in perhaps a balcony and a sea view and breakfast and all that sort of thing because actually some of them if you're going to very heavily touristy spots you know where brits go for example you may be able to get a better deal because there won't be so many people who are booking at the moment no of course well great to talk to you again georgie thank you very much indeed for talking to us uh georgie frost there with the latest updates from cartagena uh in spain uh because of course uh she's not coming back because she feels quite rightly rather than sitting in a flat in london you might as well sit on the beach in spain uh while you work i think that's a very eminently good choice you'd have to say but if you are having trouble if you've been anywhere if you're coming back from somewhere or you know some stories to tell us please do pass those stories on to us i'm particularly interested in the quarantine situation particularly in portugal particularly in spain is anybody actually policing it is anybody actually knocking on your door to check that you're staying home is anybody actually telling you when you arrive at an airport you have to now quarantine for 14 days i don't think any of that is going on but i will talk i will totally uh give you a carte blanche to let me know what is happening out there because loads of people are flying still to spain and to portugal and to other parts of europe presumably italy and greece and so nobody's stopping anyone doing it nobody's preventing anyone from going holiday um you just have to um weigh up i guess what the chances are of you having a problem are at this stage oh three four four four nine nine one thousand this is talk radio talk radio enjoying every drop of your deliciously thick milkshake is back hmm drive through mcdelivery and takeaway now available served after 11am but delivery at participating restaurants only see website for details nissan's sunderland factory is building cars again and we're ready to get britain moving that's why this summer selective nissan models come with a three-month payment holiday plus free roadside assistance all at only no percent apr representative we've built the cars we've built the offers now it's time to get you back in the driving seat see how we can help you at nissan.com dot uk payment holiday and together let's move beyond pcp nissan finance order and register by 30th september 2020 participating dealers only nissan innovation that excites talk radio traffic and travel in cardiff the a48 western avenue is closed eastbound towards the a4119 cardiff road where lori's broken down with hues towards the junction in london the a243 hook road in serbian is closed because of a burst water main in lincolnshire the a17 is closed each way to the north west of sleeford after an accident causing hughes each way trying to get between stafford and newark on trent and on the a1 western bypass in tynan where there's a lane closed because of an accident on the northbound exit at junction 69 for the dunstan interchange causing delays i'm russell holding greetings while you're working out in the middle of kitchen thinking neighbors can't see you otto sergey here hello could be checking for better energy deals so you never have to overpay okay back to my downward facing meerkat i'll put in the splendist for your launches stay one step ahead of your builds with otto sergey from comparison market across the uk online on dab and on your smart speaker late night with christo fufas on talk radio big topics big opinions big conversations and a place to have your say sophomore christo and let's put the world to rights late night with christo fufas weeknights from 10 on talk radio mid morning with mike graham talk radio the independent republic of mike graham on talk radio we've had another email from serco it's not very informative it's not going to be good enough i'm afraid guys i'm afraid you're going to have to try a lot harder i'll tell you what it says in a minute uh let's get the phones first oh three four four four nine nine one thousand uh is the number uh let's talk to lorraine who's in north west france hello lorraine or should i say bonjour bonjour whereabouts are you um in normandy oh very nice beautiful is lovely there today oh it's really warm fantastic are you on holiday or do you live there i live here do you lucky old you all legal marvelous fantastic are you able to see any um uh dingies taking off from the shore heading this way no no it's just something i was thinking about mike yeah all the dinghies they're very expensive you know these dinghy i bet they are yeah yeah where are they all going well i'll tell you what the people who are organizing the trips are very very rich because they have made by our estimation about 15 million quid this year alone right they charge 5 000 quid to each individual asylum seeker stroke illegal immigrant and they presumably provide the dinghy and provide the life jackets and provide whatever it is that they need to to get in there and sail across yeah but my my my thinking was as soon as they land on the shore yeah some that they're all beached most of those things are beached anyway and they're really expensive because i've been having a look at what they call rigid inflatables yes what sort of price are you seeing yeah and plus the life jackets the cheapest dive logs on the internet i've been doing some research it's about we'll say 18 20 quid right for each life jacket yeah right i'm sure that's true yeah so the other boats range from five grand up to whatever you want to pay for really you know yeah that is a lot of money isn't it but if you're getting five grand for one of the people on it then then it says bargain no i suppose well you've just beached it anyway but who on the english side what are they doing with it are they throwing them back to france well yeah it's a very good question i mean i've seen pictures that nigel farage has taken uh of loads and loads of these thingies just sitting in a harbor in dover but my my understanding is is that people that they get destroyed by the british or border force that they you know they put an axe through him or something well why don't they sell them off to get some money back won't be better well it would be why don't they put the people back in them and send them back the other way would be my suggestion no you know but it's a nightmare isn't it absolutely i mean what's the attitude of the people in normandy do they care that they probably don't talk about it i know they don't talk about it and you can't really bring it up it's a bit political for them you know especially in the countryside of course it's not like in the shopping excuse me what do you think yeah no i know i can imagine yeah well listen great for you to call in thank you so much for listening i love the fact that we've got people listening all over the world we had a call from sydney this morning no call from normandy uh we've had people calling us from spain now we're going to get somebody from sutton coalfield uh just to make it uh all inclusive uh lee is there hello lee hi mike hello how are you doing i'm all right thank you i spoke to you a couple of weeks ago i remember birmingham yeah so just replace the trailer yes i'm actually just serving customers at the moment because you know earlier on i would be there to talk to you but we've actually got some lovely customers at the moment oh good so you've so you've actually so you've actually business picking up a bit no no no no no it's still flatlined completely it's exactly the same but you know we sort of we we're hoping that something might get a bit more a bit better but the customers who are at the moment are regulars god bless them so good good for them do i need to let you go and talk to them then no you're all right no no okay i'd like to make a point if you don't yeah please do because really what we're what we've we're hearing generally from the because the office workers who do come is that if they don't get back to work and show their face in the office then their job will be gone really because the bosses are realising just how wonderful outsourcing is for them now unless you're a customer-facing office worker your job can be done anywhere in the world yeah absolutely anyway and we said this to a young man yesterday who is a regular he works for the government and we said that to him you know you need to get back in the office and show your face otherwise how on earth are you going to progress if you're ambitious how are you going to be able to get on and he said well i work for the government they won't do that but the government you know outsourced to france the making of our british passports yes absolutely they can do that they can outsource absolutely anything and it's basically your job is sitting a computer and pressing a button yeah well do you know what they've they've they've also outsourced half of the government business it would seem to companies like circo totally we love we are loving what you're saying about circo you absolutely rip it to them fully behind you behind you glad to hear it we've just we've just got to say people you know bosses the government have got to force the bosses to force people back to work every way we're going to survive yes i could totally agree you know i said this to somebody the other day that the only reason that restaurants started opening up was because the restaurants themselves said to the government we're going to open on july the 4th whether you like it or not and the government had to go along with it because they thought oh blimey let that happen i think that we can do the same with offices totally agree and you see the point is the government is doing it all wrong it's not what i'm saying to people we'll give you a tender if you go and work in it don't go out to an office because they're directing it to the wrong people get the office bosses to get the workers back in and then we will survive and then we'll all be happy like we were before they're going to be so many job losses in january otherwise it's going to be a catastrophe and there are so many people who are just happily saying i'm happy working at home it suits me i don't know the commute blah blah blah put the washing on at one o'clock when i want to it's not good enough they've got to save their jobs because now the slogan shouldn't be you know stay at home save the nhs now it should be go out to work and save your job so and save the economy you're absolutely right listen lee great great call good luck to you and thank you so much for your support as ever uh because we need people like lee supporting us as we uh will support lee if you're anywhere near birmingham go and find her she makes great baked potatoes go and order one immediately because you will save the economy the more you spend and that is the way forward let me tell you what i've got here from serco right we sent them an email earlier asking them since they decided to delineate the difference between asylum seekers and illegal immigrants as we call them we ask them for how many people they're actually looking after they say this um thanks for your further email the information about the areas and the numbers of asylum seekers for which circo is responsible is available via the link i sent you to the announcement that we made last year which is entirely incorrect because you're really telling me that the announcement that you made last year which was timed uh at 8th of january 2019 right that's more than a year and a half ago you plonkers that means that you're suggesting to me that you haven't got any new asylum seekers since january of last year which quite frankly is a crock of baloney okay so that's the first lie that serco has now issued additionally they say you may find it helpful to understand that serco is one of three contractors to the home office and we only manage two areas across the uk the other two companies manage the other areas well we're not interested in the other two companies matey we're interested in your company we need to know what area you are in charge of what the two areas are and how many asylum seekers you are currently housing it's not a difficult question it's very straightforward all we're looking for is a number then they say your question about future numbers of asylum seekers and costs should be addressed to the home office press office i am unable to provide you with that information sorry guys it's not working how about this right in 2019 january they say they were housing 17 000 asylum seekers there's two problems with this one they told us that they were only housing asylum seekers in hotels because of the coronavirus now correct me if i'm wrong but there wasn't a coronavirus going on on the 8th of january 2019 was there so why were they housing them in hotels we'll be back to you tomorrow serco over and out let's get some news headlines with ross powell talk radio half hour headlines scientists are in the uk is at risk of a second wave of coronavirus more than twice as high as the first if an effected test and trace strategy isn't in place by the time schools reopen in september researchers have based their model on an assumption that 70 of parents will return to work in the autumn the former health secretary stephen dorrell has told talk radio that the lack of an app-based system in the uk shouldn't be a reason for alarm other countries in the world have developed test and trace systems which are significantly more effective than ours have been using very traditional techniques technology is great when it works but until it works we have to rely on the more traditional techniques which simply rely on people asking questions and remembering the people that they've seen during the relevant period meanwhile two areas of liverpool are currently under emergency coronavirus restrictions following a spike in infections matt ashton is the director of public health for liverpool he's told times radio the test and trace program has at times proved to be a disappointment in the city it's difficult because we're relying on the national test and trace program to give us the contact information which points us in a particular direction but because some of the information isn't accurate we've actually followed that up ourselves with with door knocking so house house door knocking door knocking on the on the specific positive cases and asked about virus transmission routes there so we've got we've got a reasonably good idea and we're following that up easyjet has said it's operating more flights than previously planned the airline is increasing its schedule of 40 to 40 percent of normal capacity between now and september compared with the 30 percent it had predicted in june pizza express meanwhile has said it could close around 67 of its uk restaurants putting over a thousand jobs at risk it's part of a restructuring plan but the company stressed a final decision is yet to be made and we've also heard this afternoon the owner of curry's pc world has announced it's cutting 800 jobs as part of an overhaul of its management structure also hearing today that the glastonbury festival founder michael evis says he can't guarantee whether the festival will go ahead next year after being forced to cancel this summer's events this summer's festival was supposed to be its 50th anniversary looking at the weather the wet weather we've seen this morning across scotland and northwest of england is set to continue with some heavy downpours at times drier in the south with highs of 23 in the southeast talk radio your trusted 24-hour resource for breaking news and non-stop conversation i think by the middle of next year we'll be well on the way past it unparalleled radio for unprecedented times you do not need a massive weight loss to make a big difference to your own personal life online on dab and on the talk radio app talk radio mid-morning with mike graham talk radio the independent republic of mike graham on talk radio welcome back to the independent republic of mike graham right here on tilt radio we'll have some more questions for serco tomorrow so tune in for the latest installment on i ask you a question and you don't answer it it's a ridiculous game but we can do it for the rest of time if you wish it's our money and i want to know how you're spending it it's as simple as that and eventually you will have to bend to my will whether you like it or not sorry that's just the way journalism works and a free press and freedom of information and if i need to go down the freedom of information route trust me i'll do it if i need to get the home office involved i'll do it if i need to go and talk to pretty patel i'll do it please don't try and put us off it's really not a good idea let us talk now though to scott lucas a friend of talk radio very much a man who i've had one or two crossed swords with over time but today uh it's homeschooling time so we're not going to have a row we're just going to talk about the facts of the matter because i thought what a good plan it would be to get everybody to understand how the american election system works because it's very different from ours they have an electoral college system and scott who is of course professor of international politics at the university of birmingham is going to tell us exactly how it works so collect your children gather them around the old radio get them around the tv if you're watching on youtube and we will educate you scott a very good afternoon to you good afternoon mike thank you i'm still trying to understand it myself we'll give it a go well listen i'm sure there are plenty of people who would argue that there are some people who who take advantage of it in some ways or not uh we're not going to go anywhere near the uh whether it should be taking place in november or not but it's basically about the fact that the different i suppose the main difference in your system in america than ours is that the number of votes cast actually doesn't matter well mike in a way they're similar let me explain because i think what you're talking about is that in america you have this curiosity goes back to the 18th century called the electoral college now that is a number of delegates from each state who are chosen by the voters in november's election and they then cast their electors ballot up in washington d.c so in other words the popular vote doesn't decide who the president is it's those 55 electors from california or those three from alaska or those 10 or 11 from alabama you put all of that together but the easiest way for me to try to understand this is is that you kind of have the same system in the united kingdom you just call it an electoral college and that is when you choose your head of government uh you actually he's actually chosen by 650 members of parliament right and they of course are elected in 650 constituencies sort of 650 little many states if you will and remember that in the uk that's a winner take all if you get you know if you get 51 of the vote in your constituency or even 33 more than anybody else you've won so in the united states in each of these states it's a winner take all thing if the largest state california goes 5149 for joe biden over donald trump or vice versa that person gets all the delegates and that works all the way through each of the states where you get this curiosity in america that from 1876 to 2000 the person who won the popular vote also won the electoral college and became president but in 2000 al gore won the most void votes it was george w bush who narrowly won the electoral college after a dispute over those florida votes you might remember yeah and then the second time in history that happened where someone lost the popular vote but won the electoral college donald trump over hillary clinton in 2016. right and so i mean given that that has happened twice relatively recently is there any pressure for example on the system to make it different to make it more i suppose even-handed so that if more people do vote for one particular candidate that that candidate ends up as the winner oh there there's recurrent movements that talk about the idea that this should be a popular vote but of course the problem with going to a popular vote now is is that you could be the party that's disadvantaged by it so it just so happens that the way the electoral map is set up right now the democrats win big i mean they went by 15 20 in the largest states in new york and in california so they pile up millions of votes in leads in the big states and then the republicans as in 2016 have won narrowly in states that are smaller than new york and california say like wisconsin say like even michigan uh or say like a place like missouri and so the result is is that even though hillary clinton piled up a 3 million popular vote advantage over donald trump on the east and west coast trump won the presidency because he of 80 000 votes that swung the other way towards him in what's called the swing states michigan wisconsin and uh pennsylvania yeah so and i think ohio as well was ohio nothing in ohio so the republicans in other words right now it's really not in their interest and i'm not playing party politics it's just pragmatic politics it's not in their interest to go to a popular vote right now because they're the ones who happen to be benefiting from those narrow wins in the key swings right and are they called swing states because they literally swing from one side to the other that they don't always they can't always be counted i mean california can always be counted as a democrat blue state as can new york i guess but ohio and and wisconsin as you said pennsylvania they change yeah that's that's absolutely right mike in a quote normal election yeah this one isn't normal we can talk about that but in a normal election you can call about 40 of the 50 states months before the vote is held it's those 10 states and again we're talking about midwest states ohio michigan pennsylvania wisconsin you talk about it florida huge had decided the election in 2000 you talk about possibly for example a state like missouri or a state like north carolina those are the ones that we focus on because they usually are within about one to two percent for one candidate or the other it's interesting really isn't it because um the the campaigning that goes on in those states often defines who actually ends up winning and famously i think hillary didn't really pay much attention to ohio and wisconsin and and therefore as a result kind of lost them they were kind of known as the rust belt weren't they for donald trump but as far as the um the demographics go does that change the way that these states operate in terms of who they vote for or is it more about the personality it works on all of these mike but to start from this what you're talking about is in some of the swing states you're talking about for example voters who have tended to be classified as in the center but relatively conservative in their viewpoints a lot of them have worked in traditional manufacturing interest industries so you call them the rust belt so when the american economy turns down they tend to vote for the opponent they voted for barack obama in 2009 they voted for donald trump narrowly in 2016. but in other swing states it's the diversity of the population that matters rather than being red republican states or blue democrat they become purple because they have a variety of population white hispanic african american and because it's not just all working class or all upper class and states that are problematic for the republicans that are changing because of that that have usually been republican but may not be this year include arizona georgia and importantly texas and will it change things depending on who biden decides to pick as his running mate because a lot of talk that he's more than likely to pick a woman as his running mate um i'm assuming that probably will be the case but but does he gain anything in terms of any of those swing states as a result of that i think you can always get a marginal boost from your vice presidential choice and it will be a woman joe biden has said that it quite probably will be a woman of color uh think about an african american like kamala harris karen bass val demings uh but i think it's only marginal mike as much as we pay attention to the vice presidential uh choice it's the big issues that sort of decide elections bill clinton's people in the 1990s famously said it's the economy stupid yeah but of course on top of the economy this year which is in a very difficult state we've got the pandemic which is likely to still be raging by november and we've also got the issues that have raised by the anti-racism marshes across the u.s since may yeah and interestingly as well for people listening on this side of the atlantic there's no cap is there as far as i'm aware on the amount of money you can spend on campaign contributions and on campaign advertising whereas in this country obviously there is there was an attempt to limit it mike uh in the start of the 21st century with campaign finance reform but what that reform did is it limited what you call hard money and hard money is money that's given directly to the campaign of say a donald trump or a joe biden and you would identify whether that came from a business whether it came from an activist group like the national rifle association but what happened on all sides republican democrat is they started to turn towards soft money they would create these groups called political action committees now known as pacs or super pacs and those pacs are not under the same regulations so they don't have the same limits on how much they can spend and also because they technically say that they are not part of the campaign they don't have the same restrictions on what they can say uh under the federal election commission's rules so so they literally can spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars and we'll do so yeah uh i mean one thing to watch this year has been that uh the spending balance tended to favor donald trump through these packs up until june and july but in the last two months biden has overtaken him and spending through both hard and soft money yeah fascinating times well november is going to be very interesting indeed i'm assuming uh that the race will go ahead and the election will go ahead there stuart thank you scott sorry thank you very much indeed scott lucas they're a professional professor of international politics uh who's over at university of birmingham uh a man who knows a thing or two uh about the way the electoral system works in the u.s of a you can't imagine how much money they spend you can't imagine what the ads are gonna be like they're gonna be attack ads all over the place it's going to be fascinating we'll be covering it of course here at talk radio i may well indeed be covering it overnight on the night that it all happens who can say but i certainly like to i'll put my bid in now shall i uh i might have had a holiday by then who knows if i haven't i'll have gone completely barking mad this is talk radio online on dav and on the talk radio app talk radio disney plus invites you to test your disney and pixar knowledge are you ready see how many of these iconic movies you can name oh infinity and beyond we're on the brink of an adventure just keep swimming even miracles take a look some people are worth melting for whatever your score now you can relive those moments and discover many more with all the best disney and pixar movies all yours for only 5.99 a month all these and more now streaming disney plus 18 plus subscription required decency supply false information about coronavirus is being spread everywhere popping up here being shared there reaching and tricking more people with every share they don't even understand the harm it can cause false information can be hard to spot make sure you know what you're sharing don't feed the beast visit sharechecklist.gov.uk stay alert control the virus save lives talk radio traffic and travel greater manchester the clockwise m60 has got a laying out of action for a broken down lorry that's been recovered so it's very slow before junction 15 at the swinton interchange of cues back to worsley at 13. the m6 in lancashire very heavy as you head northbound past junction 33 at lancaster or garstang due to an accident on the hard shoulder north on the m6 in warwickshire there's a lane shut for an accident at coventry at junction 2 and inbound into bristol on the m32s crawling with two lanes shut following an accident of saint paul's at junction 3. [Music] greetings while you're working out in the middle of kitchen thinking neighbors can't see you auto sergei here hello could be checking for better energy deals so you never have to overpay okay back to my downward facing meerkat i'll put in the splendist for your own stay one step ahead of your bills with otto sergey from comparison market talk radio your trusted 24-hour resource for breaking news and non-stop conversation it's a terrible idea it's not going to work and it's going to be much more extensive than people think unparalleled radio for unprecedented times so we were also in contact with instagram telling them look this stuff is going up on your platform and they were acknowledging it and yet they were doing nothing about it online on dab and on the talk radio app talk radio mid-morning with mike graham talk radio the independent republic of mike graham on talk radio welcome back to the independent republic of mike graham elsa stewart will be here shortly to tell us what's coming up on his show he's here of course all week for ian collins one to four uh we've got mark dolan from four to seven as well uh he's in uh for uh dan wootton who's away two and of course um james well is away at the moment as well howard uses in for him tonight kevin o'sullivan i think is in for him from wednesday uh so lots going on here at talk radio loads to talk about let's go back to the phones and listen as if by magic we've got another internationalist on the phone leo is in geneva in switzerland hello yes good morning afternoon hi how are you doing yeah good so i just want to say um earlier you mentioned uh the guy called in talking about sweden yeah and the lockdown stuff no i just got back from spending a week though okay and um i mean it's just like life is normal i mean people are just getting on with things but there are you know measures in place so you know everywhere you go to restaurants or whatever there's uh there's space between the tables there's um there's hand sanitizers everywhere and people are just treated like adults and they respond accordingly and a lot of the restaurants never closed right no for sure and i went with my uh with my wife and went to do a lot of family things and even when we met up with other family members you know people weren't hugging each other you know we did a lot of stuff out in the garden so you know that's just the way things need to happen we don't need to be kind of micromanaged no every step of the way no i agree what's it like in geneva where you earlier um so actually funnily enough since i've got back they've actually had a few more cases so now they've made it mandatory for face covering um in supermarkets um and on public transport but department transformers okay has been in place for a while but um just one other thing quick like on this black lives matter um thing yeah have you seen those videos um going around twitter of this um quasi militia yes we talked about it actually yesterday uh and today a little bit as well so i haven't actually seen any of this on bbc or any other place the only place i've seen is on twitter and my first reaction to it was i mean they look completely ridiculous i mean you know they've got their they've got their walkie-talkies and their little well bulletproof looking vest and they just look like complete idiots well i put a tweet out last night saying it would take about four paratroopers to deal with this lot um in fact people corrected me and said probably only two actually yeah i mean the thing is i'm living in switzerland at the moment and i'm kind of trying to look for reasons to move back to the uk and all i'm finding is reasons to stay away i would suggest that you would want to stay where you are at the moment until we manage to get back in charge the sensible people uh i think we i think i would suggest you stay where you are yeah yeah no i i we're working on it we are working on it leo and we are the the greatest thing i think about britain is the fact that we ridicule people um and i think the fact that we've started ridiculing that particular image where somebody's done it too there's a great video of it done being done to ymca and another one to the benny hill theme so the more we ridicule it i think the better um and then we can get on with the business of actually uh living in a civilized country again yeah i love that program mike it's the best show on radio you're very kind leo thank you very much indeed thanks for calling leo from geneva uh which gives us a triumvirate i think of of different uh countries today mary is in birmingham no prejudice against birmingham at all mary very good afternoon to you welcome hello mark i'll bring you back down that's okay listen burmese just as exotic as geneva as far as i'm concerned well if i have a pina colada then there you go it might be there you go just a couple of quick points mike um i don't know if you've heard about the philippines what's happened there more or less do you know i saw a tweet about the philippines but i didn't investigate so tell me well what it is they went in when when this first arose the coronavirus they went into very early lockdown and they um had the most stringent rules of lockdown as well but now they're going through um quite a bad research of of coronavirus um victims so it makes me question this business of lockdown because maybe the people don't build up an immunity yeah so that was just one of my points and the second thing is i'm beginning to sympathize an awful lot more with peter hitchens view about the mass yes because if we are to return to normality they are the most abnormal thing to wear not only in how they make one feel but you cover up your face and your smile you know the mouth can tell as much as the eyes yes and i think it is very unsettling for a lot of people having to wear the mask it does look quite weird when you're out and about and everybody's wearing them on the street i find because i i don't understand those people who want to wear them while they're walking around outside no you know no and it it it's just something i i i personally i'm a law abiding i'm a bit of a scaredy cat but even i sometimes think this is absolutely horrible and i just don't like it but no i mean what do you do yourself have you have you had to go into a shop wearing one i i do go into a shop wearing one because but i do feel at the same time i'm a bit of a lemming you know are we doing this because we're being told to do it yeah an awful lot of us i don't think actually believe it's working but we're just going along with it i think yeah because by and large we're a relatively sort of civilized population if somebody asks me nicely to do something i'll do it if somebody tells me to do it i probably won't do it you know well that's it you know i've got i've got defiant i suffer from defiance syndrome i i think i'm a bit like you as well but then i lose my bottle i know well listen stick with it stick with it i think your instincts are correct mary uh but we'll talk again soon thank you very much indeed david uh finally is in bridlington east yorkshire hello david hello mike how are you very well sir what can i do for you good to speak again yeah yeah i was just thinking about what you were talking about with the psychologist before about um people being risk averse yes um we used to come to london really quite regularly you know and stay in uh in uh different pubs madly born drinking the medley born in right i have real fun you know as tourists but you know we'd sooner go to beirut now really honestly well because of the coronavirus or just because of the fact that london i'm not not coronaphobic in the slightest um it's just that until you know the government and khan gets a grip of what's going on on the streets yeah why on earth would anybody want to come and spend money yeah no listen i mean i'm i'm very very conscious of the fact that i think london right now and i'm a great supporter and defender of london is more dangerous than i think it's ever been in my lifetime because i'm not here any longer at the weekends i tend to go to sussex and hang out with my kids and my dog but what i see happening on the streets in in in the weekend and stuff is horrific but does the government not realize that quite apart from this covered nonsense that's going on and all the lockdown and all these businesses who the hell would want to come there as a tourist from the uk now well i think you're absolutely right it's something they need to get a grip of you're absolutely right david thank you very much indeed see that's a terrible indictment isn't it sadiq khan his old david and brilliant said he'd rather go to beirut uh than he would go uh to um to london for the weekend you'd have to say you don't really blame him for that because there's some of the stuff that goes on out there i mean i was driving over westminster not westminster bridge i was driving over tower bridge the other day and some of these kids came behind the car you know on their bikes you know doing wheelies and you think to yourself now this could easily get out of hand because they're young teenagers they don't care and if you have a word with them i've seen footage of people getting into situations with them you know there's a lot of them um and they can be very troublesome i think we need to talk about this some more we'll talk about it some more tomorrow because we've come to the end of yet another show and i'm delighted to say alex assurance here alistair very good afternoon good afternoon welcome back my friend well it's very kind they let you come back for a second ago i always think that a little bit i felt that a fortnight ago when i did julia's show that you know you get through monday and you get your fingers crossed you go it's all gone all right yeah and then touch touch uh touch wood but we've we've got some cracking stuff i'm really interested in this there's this big report that's come out uh which is all over the newspapers shock horror there's going to be a second wave it's going to be dreadful choose between schools and pubs if you actually read the report which i know you will have done yes there's a bit in the middle of it that says but you know if we do track and trace and if we keep a register like most of the pubs and restaurants are doing then actually there's a less than 50 percent chance of there being a second one why isn't that the headline i know why is the shock horror because they only have two speeds now i think i fear and i'm very reluctant to criticize my chums in the media but they're not doing a very good job at the moment similarly the other day when we had that thing about the new revolutionary game-changing test it's not because one you have to buy a machine which costs several thousand pounds it's not going to be operated by people other than you know professionals it's not going to be something you can just give people in in the street and so they just over egg everything or underrate everything that's the 90 minute test yes yeah yeah the 90 minute test i mean i spoke to a doctor yesterday on the air and he said it's not a silver bullet it's not the game changer that people are describing it you know it's it's it's okay yeah but it's going to be very hard we've talked about this but there is a silver bullet there's only one silver bullet and that's abiding by the absolutely basic rules about social distance and washing your hands and being sensible about it and gavin williamson in the paper saying your bus kids into school and what have you um the truth of the matter in the schools is kids are not a problem no it's mums and dads gathering at the gate yeah and that needs to be sorted out and if that's okay it's okay and it's the staff room as well i think that this is going to cause maybe they should reintroduce uh chaps who wear um tweed jackets with leather patches smoking pipes in the in the school style or even a few nuns smoking pipes the other thing we're going to be talking about um i'd live down in the country um and it's the national farmers union the insurance bill it's come a brilliant report about the surge in rural crime and at one end of the spectrum it's sort of d.h lawrence stuff killing sheep and lambs for food okay i understood that right there's always been a case the other is organized crime making quad bikes and land rovers and flogging them very very quickly and the answers get a tracker rather than stop it happening yeah so we'll be chatting about it okay love to hear from folk about it absolutely alice stuart here until four o'clock uh i'll be back for more tomorrow even uh from ten let's talk radio talk radio you

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Keywords: talkradio, talk radio, UK, News, Radio, live radio, live show, Mike Graham

Id: -qusWfeJ-rU

Length: 177min 50sec (10670 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 04 2020