“Thanks, Sam. It’s Saturday night, and you’re with the Saturday 5. I’m Darren Grimes, and I can promise that you’re in for a very lively festive special. Let’s crack on with tonight’s first debate. I’m going to abuse my position like Sadiq Khan and take over first. Well, well, well, Sadiq Khan. Remember him, sir? Sadiq Khan! Soon enough, my blood pressure… I tell you, is the gift that keeps on giving. The London mayor has decided to ban an advert from the National Farmers Union.
The people who keep our bellies full are our Public Enemy Number One for daring to raise awareness about Labour’s Family Farm tax. But hold your horses! Khan’s Transport for London had no issue plastering the tube with ads from pensioner Harry’s assisted dying campaign. They had no problem with the vegan brigade being wall-to-wall, or even a controversial Islamic preacher holding a briefcase full of burning US dollars and other political causes.
They’re all good, apparently. But farmers? Huh! Barber, Cloud, Farri, right, fascists? Do one. Too politically controversial, apparently. This isn’t about advertising policy; this is about silencing anyone who doesn’t march to the lefty drum. Khan’s London is all about pushing the agenda, and that includes silencing dissent. The covering of the countryside in solar panels that work about as well as Starmer’s sick of fancy towards Lord Ali? Hearing from the people who actually feed us is apparently just too much for the delicate sensibilities of Labour’s London-dwelling elite.
The NFU had 40,000 quid set aside to spread the word about British farmers being the backbone of this country. Now, instead of a little poster campaign, we’re left with the usual Labour posturing. Political pygmies trying to shut down anyone who dares to disagree. Well, guess what, Sadiq? You can try to silence the farmers, but you’ll just make their voices even louder. I look forward to the next protest. And as for your knighthood, well, I wouldn’t risk telling you where you can put your medal. I’d be banned from the tube for life.
Well, he gets my blood pressure going. I don’t know about any of you. I don’t even live in London, but he gets my goat. You know, I’m a born and bred Londoner. I say it all the time, and this city has gone so far downhill since he’s been there. And of course, he’s the police and crime commissioner for the city as well. And look how that’s gone. We’ve got thefts every 10 minutes of people’s mobile phones in the city, let alone the rising knife crime and other violent crimes.
The man is completely devoid of any political acumen whatsoever. Obviously, he’s kept up those advertisements for a… I think it’s a gambling site or a money transfer site that shows that Islamic cleric who has made homophobic and many other comments in the past. So this is just, again, you know, he’s able… he’s not able to get rid of that one, but he’s able to stop this one.
I mean, you know, what does that tell you? It’s all political, isn’t it? Despite him saying that it isn’t. Yeah, that controversial cleric ad was outrageous. I don’t know if you remember it, Chloe, from back in the not-too-distant past. But the fact of the matter is, you know, they’re saying you can’t have political ads, and it’s a blanket ban. It’s clearly not. Only when it suits them.
I mean, it seems to me that, at the moment, the Labour Party is doing as much as they possibly can to make rural communities despise them. They’re really showing themselves to be a metropolitan elite. Benjamin, even you must admit that this is naked politics.
No, I wouldn’t admit anything.
Well, look, we had an election in London only a matter of months ago, and Sadiq Khan was returned overwhelmingly against a woman called Susan Hall, who’s probably not the most famous woman in her own house. So it’s clear that Londoners like Sadiq Khan. You know, it continues to be a metropolitan, modern, global city, and I, for one, love it. Even if all of you lot like your little England, I like it.
So why are all the rich saying, ‘I’m done with this. I’m off. I’m going to go to the United States where the tax rates are better, and I’m not being stabbed to death on the streets’?
Well, they’re not all saying that at all. We had £60 billion… and that’s billion… of investment in this country, the highest ever from an investment summit. But on the question of farmers, you know, these are farms worth most likely more than £3 million that will be affected. And you have seen rich people… Jeremy Clarkson is one of them, who have been buying up thousands of acres of farmland.
And what does that do to the price for young farmers? It means they can’t afford to buy land. I’m glad that someone is bridging that gap and making it easier for young people to get on the ladder. And for Jeremy Clarkson, who told The Sunday Times in 2021 that he was doing it to avoid inheritance tax… good slap. He was talking about building a chute.
He was building a chute, not the farm. And now he’s got the farm, he’s saying this isn’t about someone like him. He’s rich enough to take the hit. This is about the family farmer who doesn’t agree with you. Despite the fact you’re making the argument saying that they’re the ones this policy has hurt, they’re saying that this will deny them the opportunity to take on their family farm.
Do you know what? I think people have a lot of problems at the moment, and the idea that the biggest threat this country faces is those with more than £3 million of assets being asked to pay half the inheritance tax of everyone else on a higher rate over a 10-year period… I think the country has got bigger bills to fill than wealthy, aristocratic landowners.
About pensioners who make out that because they’ve got assets, it’s not their fault that the house prices have gone up. It’s not my fault either, is it? It’s not farmers’ fault. But you want to damage food security and pensioners’ livelihoods. It’s not farmers’ fault. I tell you, screw loose, I really do. It’s rich landowners’ fault that are buying up all the land to avoid inheritance tax and cutting out the farmer himself.
We’ll have to move on from that one. But all I can say is, Sadiq Khan. Alex, what have you got?
Well, 2020 is around the corner, isn’t it? We’ve got a new year and a new city of culture. And who do you think is getting this lovely, lovely award for city of culture, given the gusto and the innovation and the creativity of a British city? Is it Bath with its Roman heritage? Is it York with the medieval, prehistoric buildings? Is it Edinburgh with its great contribution to philosophy, poetry, and other great British innovations? No, my friends.
It’s going to be Bradford. Yes, Bradford, of all the places. Bradford, with its 170% of the national crime average, with its highest unemployment rate in Yorkshire, with its second-largest Pakistani-born community in the country, and of course, home of the grooming gang scandal. Now, the government has already pledged £10 million to Bradford as the city of culture to celebrate things such as arts, and the Labour government the other day announced a further £5 million in the hope that it will produce 6,500 jobs.
Well, yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it. Giving Bradford the city of culture is akin to giving Putin the Nobel Peace Prize. Bradford represents everything that is wrong with Britain. It represents mass immigration, failure of assimilation, and wasted government money spent on cities that are dying at a rapid rate.
This is a slap in the face of all of those hardworking British cities that deserve to be commended for their contribution to our country. So I say, until we have common-sense politicians with pride in Britain, we should give it up, scrap this silly award, and give the money to cities that actually deserve it.
Well, I think you’re doing a great disservice to all those people who’ve married their cousins. Have you ever been to Bradford?
No, and I don’t particularly wish to go.
Do you know what? You often sit here and say that people like me are the elite, that are snobs, and look down on people. That is the most snobby two minutes I’ve heard in my whole life. The idea… hang on, hang on. The idea that just because Bradford is relatively poor, and it certainly has some serious crime issues, that they can’t have culture, that they can’t have art.
The whole point of this is that people who don’t have access to the opportunities of born-and-bred Londoners, as you just described yourself, should get access. I don’t think that whether you live in Zone 1 London, you should be the only place where you get access to art and culture and those careers. I think putting £15 million into Bradford for those young people to get that access is a good thing.
Benjamin, I don’t disagree that we shouldn’t spend our money in London. I don’t want the Labour elite to grow, and I was born in a poor part of London in Zone 6 or 7, just for the record, by the way. But Bradford does not represent the culture of Britain. Well, I just listed all the reasons why it represents all the things the British public want to change about this country. So, giving it the city of culture award in itself, you can say we’re going to give some money and invest it into a poor city like Bradford. That’s fine, but to call it the city of culture is exactly the backward thing that most people see as this out-of-touch government.
But would the money not make it this bustling metropolis?
I think people are going to get off the train at Bradford and go, ‘Oh my God, if this is British culture, send me somewhere else. I’d rather go to Paris.’ And that’s not much better.
Yeah, I don’t think that there is anything wrong with investing money in communities that are run down, need a new coat of paint, but don’t lie and say, ‘Oh, this is because you’re the city of culture, and you’ve got an amazing art scene.’ Okay? Just admit this is a city that’s run down, needs some investment to create some jobs, and get it thriving again. Just say that. Be honest about it.
I mean, it has got an airport, so you can leave Bradford, which I think most of us probably would. They should have invested in that one, actually. Should’ve invested in the airport… Bradford Airport. People were leaving.
Listen, I have nothing against the people of Bradford. I have something against calling it the city of British culture. We have such great cities in this country. Surely, we can celebrate some of them, and some of these cities have done exceptionally well despite the conditions they’ve had to operate under. Surely, we can do more.
But it goes to Chloe’s point because, you know, the whole point of leveling up under Boris was to make sure the communities that were run down, that did need the funding, got funding and got better. But to give them awards in particular areas where, actually, you’re just sort of tick-boxing or making sure that people are happy? Terrible news. The airport is in Leeds. It’s Leeds. Build an airport.
Well, my boss just emailed in, and he said, ‘Darren, why are you dressed like you popped into the shops?’
Oh, well, I feel like I’m on an episode of Trinny and Susannah.
You’re off to Bradford?
I’m off to Bradford, the city of culture.
Yes, right.”
