Why can’t Nigel Farage be clear about his finances? | The News Agents

The latest, I think it's fair to say, strand of complexity to Nigel Farage's financial affairs.By complex, I mean he's raking it in.He's not that complex.Actually, incredibly simple.He is loaded.He is being paid £270 ,000 for roughly 12 hours promotional work over three months.

That is around £22 ,500 per hour.Nice work, if you can get it.Not clear if he's being paid in money or bullion, but I'm sure we'll see.Intriguing that Farage is getting ahead of the idea that he might have broken the rules and be forced to fight a by -election over it.

There's a whole murkiness around really how transparent he's been about the money he's earned.

He knows that he can't go into an election, really, with this sort of financial complexity.He knows that, you know, endorsing gold bullion, you know, being a brand ambassador, you want to be PM, you know, you're not Jude Bellingham.He knows, really, deep down, I think, that that isn't going to fly, which again speaks to me that he hasn't necessarily, it's just a possibility that he hasn't truly made up his mind whether he's going to fight that election.

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This is a global production.When you're in politics and people laugh at this, but there's no money in politics.There's no money if you're straight.Right.If you're corrupt, there's probably...Yeah, but there's finding a straight politician.

But there's no money in politics.

That was Nigel Farage just before he was elected in 2024.But miraculously, it seems there is actually money in politics.Forget the £5 million donation for a moment.There's also the five mortgage -free homes he has, only two of which are declared.And then there's the little matter of the gold bullion.Should Nigel Farage finally come clear about his finances?

Welcome to the News Agents.

The News Agents.

It's Maitlis.It's Lewis.And here's a question to kick us off with.Would you buy gold off this man?

How can you better your pension?And I say that because most of us have been very disappointed over the last few years about the returns on our private pensions.Well, I bet no one ever told you before that you can put gold into your pension, and that it's been producing returns of over 10 % a year, year after year after year.If you want to be in on this secret, it's all here.Direct Bullion's guide to how you can buy and put gold in your own personal pension.Protect your pension nest egg by clicking the link, filling in the form, and finding out more.

I thought you were going to say John Sopel.Would you buy gold from this man?He's more sort of the commemorative coin kind of thing, isn't he?

He's getting there.More from John Saint -Paul a little later in the programme.

Indeed so.This is, though, part of the latest, I think it's fair to say, strand of complexity to Nigel Farage's financial affairs.Unusually complex, and by complex I mean he's raking it in for an MP.Not that complex, actually incredibly simple.He is loaded.So let's just go review exactly where we now are.

He is one of the highest earning MPs in Parliament.He's now declared more than £2 million in outside earnings since entering the Commons in 2024.He presents on a little -known television station, but he also does paid speeches, social media promotions, cameo videos, commercial endorsements, and consultancy and ambassadorial work.This would be quite unusual for any MP, even a backbench MP.There are some high -earning MPs normally in professions.

I mean, I think he comes second to Rishi Sunak, frankly.

yeah.And when you're coming second in the money stakes to Sunak, and to be fair to Sunak, I think he actually gives quite a lot of that away to charity.But anyway, yes, he's obviously particularly unusual for a party leader and a party leader who says he's most likely of any of the party leaders to become prime minister.The latest one, as we've just been hearing there, He is a paid brand ambassador for Direct Bullion.So literally a gold company.And we found out this week that he is being paid £270 ,000 for roughly 12 hours promotional work over three months.

That is around £22 ,500 per hour.Nice work if you can get it.Not clear if he's being paid in money or bullion, but I'm sure we'll see.And he's received nearly £700 ,000 from Direct Bullion overall.And as you can hear in that video there, he is being used and emblazoned across Direct Bullion's promotional material, their website, as an endorsement and key political endorser of their business and the idea of using gold to promote your pension.

We'll tell you a little bit about Direct Bullion because it's always good to know.It was founded about a decade ago and it sells physical precious metals, as in what the name suggests, gold coins, bullion bars, silver.And it doesn't really reveal very much when you go and look at the filings at Companies House because, quote, direct bullion is too small to publish full detailed accounts.So all that we have shows that the Ness assets of 2 .6 million, which is only about four times the amount it has paid to Nigel Farage, to date.So they decided that literally a quarter of their earnings would go to Farage.

He also has, of course, there are other complexities.He, of course, has become increasingly associated with crypto investors.And as we know, this goes to the central political issue, which has a donation issue, which has started to affect his politics, which is the five million pound gift, personal gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harbour before he entered Parliament.I should say that the rest of the stuff that we're talking about, including the gold bullion money, it is fully compliant.with parliamentary rules, it's all being disclosed and so on.There aren't any limits on outside earnings for MPs and so on.

So that's all within the rules.Obviously, the crypto donation or the crypto gift that was given to him, which initially he said was for his security, then he said it was a reward for Brexit, then he said it has nothing to do with us and if he wants to buy a load of Ferraris with it, then he can.That is now subject to a parliamentary inquiry, which very intriguingly, in the last 24 hours, Farage has posited the idea that he will be forced to file fight a by -election because the Commissioner and the Privileges Committee could come back and say that he has broken rules.So already it's intriguing that Farage is getting ahead of the idea that he might have broken the rules and be forced to fight a by -election over it.

Yeah, I mean, depending on what the Parliamentary Commissioner finds, if there is a breach, first of all, we don't know if there's an actual breach, but if it's deemed significant enough to be a suspension of more than nine days, then Farage would face a recall, potentially, and then he would be forced to face a by -election if the Commissioner finds that there is a breach, but it's, you know... deemed less serious.It could be a suspension of mere nine days, in which case Farage would not have to fight any recall petition or any by -election.We should maybe just talk about the houses as well, because Nigel Farage and his partner have managed to build a property portfolio, we think, of around £4 million over the last decade.Again, nothing illegal about that.But curiously,from their five homes, which the Times says span Surrey, Essex, and Kent, and all but one were bought with cash since 2020, only two of those homes have been declared under the Land and Property section of the Register of Members' Interest.

So two out of the five declared.And as you say, Lewis, it's certainly not prohibited to make money.You are allowed to make money.And a lot of people would listen to this and say, well, he's probably actually made from gold bullion what a lawyer would make in an hour.It's a very dramatic way of kind of getting your money, but it's probably no worse than a lot of other people who've worked in sort of slightly less glitzy roles than this but I guess what we're talking about really is a what has been declared so there's the transparency question and Farage certainly seemed really uncomfortable last week when he was being asked about that five million pound donation which he claimed was for security and asked whether he had spent it and asked what he'd spent it on.

Nigel Farage please what has happened to this five million pound gift?With all due respect, what's it got to do with you?Well, because it speaks to the position you hold in office.Initially, we were told that it was because of your personal security and it would pay for that for the rest of your life.Then apparently it was some kind of reward for campaigning for Brexit.I am told we have two different stories.

Which is the truth?I think you're contradicting yourself there, aren't you?

Well, if you tell me what happened with the £5 million, then we're solved.It's an unconditional gift.I can spend it on Ferraris if I want.have been entirely up to me.Why did you say it was for personal security then?Because it was given as an unconditional gift, right?

So there's that whole murkiness around really how transparent he's been about the money he's earned.And then there's the secondpoint, which I think is in a way more salient, which is, this is a man who has always tried to claim he was for the people, you know, the people that had hard times and had shit lives and were being ignored by the big parties.And he's raking it in from gold bullion, whilst he's also talking about getting rid of workers' rights, getting rid of the minimum wage, getting rid of the protection for people in their employment.And I guess that's where we're just curious to see the effect that this might have overall on the standing of the party?

Yeah, look, I think we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this is a really, really unusual situation.We've had prime ministers who have been rich, Rishi Sunak, for example, or easily the richest, and with some complexity to their financial arrangements.But right now we've got, he's just an MP obviously at the moment, but he's a party leader, a party which has led in 150 polls or so, who says himself that he is on the way to being the next prime minister.And we have never had, we've just considered Nigel Farage's financial affairs currently encompass multiple substantial commercial income streams, brand ambassador roles for investment products, large personal gifts from wealthy supporters, which he didn't initially disclose, links to major political donors, crypto investments and relationships, crypto products, by the way, which he drops into conversation now and again before it was known, and our ongoing standards investigation into disclosure and significant property holdings.Now, that is just unusual for British politics.It just is unusual.

And, you know, I think what's also unusual about it, and you've hinted at it, Emily, is Farage's response to that, which is very often to try and just brush away concerns.When he's asked about it, as he was, for example, with the five million, he says,what's it got to do with you?

Why are you asking me?Yeah.

Now this again is highly unusual and I think, you know, needs more focus and attention.Imagine if Keir Starmer had said when he got the 200 quid glasses or the suit, what's it got to do with you?Imagine if he'd said that, what's it got to do with you?the accusation rightly of arrogance of complete arrogance and impropriety that would have come it would have been blazoned across the front page of every single newspaper in this country and led every single BBC bulletin and broadcast bulletin and yet Farage I think is paying a political penalty for this but it is not proportionate or commensurate with actually what you know frankly that isn't you cannot say that if you are hoping to become prime minister of this country of course you can say that if even probably if you're a backbench MP you could probably get away with it certainly if you're a private citizen good luck to you be brand ambassador for gold bullion for anything you want to be however savory or unsavory the company might be crypto arms companies, tobacco, you name it, you can do it as a private individual.But the point is, is that you can do whatever you want to be.But if you're choosing to be in the public arena, and not just in the public arena, but setting yourself up as the next prime minister, you can't tell us all just to fuck off and not pay any attention to it.

I think that's exactly right.And I think the interesting thing is you don't choose to endorse gold bullion or crypto by accident, right?There are lots of other brands that you could have adopted rather than those.And so this keeps telling me that he is copying the Trump model.Now, yesterday, we learned through a 900 page document that was released that Trump has been making $1 .4 billion in the last year alone, dollars admittedly, but that is about $2 million a day since he came to office, right?And so I think something is going

on in Farage's head, which is one step behind where the British public are, because he's still looking to America for his blueprint.Trump is still his role model.If Trump's going to make money on crypto, if Trump's going to put his face on the Bitcoin, if Trump's going to get his kind of gold bullion, his gold bars whenever he goes to the UAE, then why can't I do it?It's really working for him.Why can't I do it?And I guess the answer to that is, because it just doesn't really work here.

It leaves a really nasty taste in the mouth.And we don't understand why America seems to be asleep at the wheel.We don't understand why they seem to be absolutely fine with what's going on there.But my sense is that it's not going to be that easy here because people particularly in crunch circumstances where we are talking about the cost of living every single day, people look up and go, why would he be throwing that in our face?

Yeah, I think that's completely right.I think as ever, reform make their mistakes when they think we're the United States and they think that our politics is United States politics.It's not.Thankfully, our politics is not so far gone.In fact, I mean, you know, The Epstein scandal is a great example of this.Where has the political price been paid and the penalty been paid?

Not in American politics, maybe to some extent around the edges, but in British politics, right?And that's because our democracy still is healthier when it comes to the expectation of certain standards.Our voters are not so polarised as they are in the United States, that basically there is a huge number of people who, no matter how brazenly corrupt Trump is, they'll support him anyway, right?That's not British politics.And if you listen to pollsters, people like Luke Trill, they will say this thing about the five million is coming up independently in focus groups, in polling.And you can see that his personal ratings and his party's ratings have definitely taken a hit since then.

And I think there's one other thing about it, though, that it might hint at, not just about their taking inspiration from America and misreading that.To me, again,it hints at something we've been talking about for a while now, which is, is Farage's heart really in this?Is he in this for the long haul?Because what it speaks to me, with at least the possibility of, is that he's keeping his options open.He still wants to make money.

He knows that he can't go into an election, really, with this sort of financial complexity.He knows that, you know, endorsing gold bullion, you know, being a brand ambassador, you want to be PM, you know, you're not Jude Bellingham.Like, for goodness sake, he knows.Well, not yet.He knows, I know.I'm not sure I'll say that worse for us or Jude.

But anyway, like, he knows really deep down I think that that isn't going to fly, which again speaks to me that he hasn't necessarily, it's just a possibility that he hasn't truly made up his mind whether he's going to fight that election, particularly if he thinks it's going to come in 28, 29 and wants to make cash.

He's got three years, there's a lot of bullion to be sold in three years.

And the rest.

So we are now exactly two weeks on from the Makerfield by -election and We know the top line of that.We understand the ultimate result, which is putting Andy Burnham into Downing Street within a matter of days.weeks or maybe days.But what I guess we haven't really analysed in the last two weeks is what this has done to the sort of shifting plates of politics, the other parties and how they are starting to re -examine their own fortunes in relation to a Burnham Labour government rather than a Starmer government.Luke Trill is here, more in common.We have been through the sort of the Makerfield experience together, Luke.

But I guess it's quite interesting now to work out how the parties are starting to sort of reimagine themselves or redefine themselves for this era.What are you seeing?

So I think there's broadly, if you look at what Makefield taught us, it was that you need to do three things to win in British politics today.The first thing is you've got to unite your bloc, right?And by the bloc, I mean the left bloc, which is Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green, and the right bloc, which is Tory, Reform, Restore.So you've got to unite your bloc and Andy Burnham did that really well in Makefield.The Greens got squeezed, Liberal Democrats got squeezed.The total opposite of what happened in the local elections just a month before.

So I think there is that increasing focus on how do I demonstrate I own my bloc and we're already seeing that in the Greater Manchester by -election with the Greens and Labour arguing they're the best placed on the left bloc because you also then get the tactical voting.The second thing you've got to do is juice up turnout, right?In a way that actually, you know, turnout's not been as big a feature of British politics.What reform showed in the locals was they could get people who don't normally vote to vote.And that was always the worry in Makefield for Andy Burnham was, would people actually come out in a by -election?Because they didn't for Labour and locals.

Tick, you do that.So it's win your block, it is Get turnout, get the turnout, and then the third thing is then you've got to still, we haven't abandoned, you know, we haven't moved away from, you've still got to reach people in the other block, right, because those voters count double, you know, if you're in a labour reform marginal and you're labouring, you get a reform voter back, it's one off them.one added to you, Tory -Lib Dem marginal, one off them, one to you.So it's this much more kind of complicated approach to electoral competition that we're not really used to, and Andy Burnham showed himself to be the master of all three, and I think the other parties are now thinking, and in particular, you know, Reform UK will be thinking, well the partythat we've got is a you know with the Tories winning Aberdeen South we don't necessarily you know we thought we had the claim on the right block and the Tories have shown they've at least still got a pulse where people are turning out to vote against us you know, the anti -reform motivation is very high and tactical voting against reform is very high and they're selecting candidates who are slightly too polarizing to win over cross -block voters.So I think, you know, in the locals reform triumph on all three, in make a field they basically fall flat on all three of those tests and that starts to become a real problem for reform because we know that voters in that right bloc are motivated more than anything else by wanting to get Labour out, to have a right -wing government of some sort.

And if reform keep losing, it allows the Tories to potentially say, Well look, actually, if you want a right -wing government, reform are so polarizing that they're going to keep losing because the left will unite.We can actually win on the right, you can't.So it opens up that battle for the right a little bit more in a way that probably a few months ago, we'd have been like reformer, you know, dominating that block.

So how much, I mean, we spent the first half of this episode talking about Nigel Farage's money problems, or rather, not money problems, but the scandal surrounding money that he's received or made.Is that actually playing through?I mean, it's a week on from that sort of rather temper tantrum -y round of interviews he did where he got increasingly cross with people asking about the money and started talking about spending it on Ferraris.And I'm trying to work out whether, again, this issort of bubble stuff and the rest of the country just doesn't care because they've bought into him.They like what he stands for.

They like the kind of rip it up and start again factor of Farage or whether that's starting to lose its shine.

I think it's a bit of both.So what I would say is, you know, and we've spoken before about the fact that, you know, reform voters are not a homogenous bloc.You know, if you think of the people who voted for them in 2024 as the true believers, when you talk about the five million with that group, they go, well, he wasn't an MP, why should he?It's the second 15%, that group who, you know, are sort of like, well, they're not they're not ideologically purist reform, they're much more we just got to try something new, the system isn't working, he seems authentic, he seems different.In that group we've had more people say oh I'm not really sure about this.Now the thing is it is quite complicated and complicated scandals are often less fatal and less damaging than simple ones which are easy to explain.

So it's not that they're writing him off but interestingly in focus groups for the first time I've had people saying and voting reform sort of in spite of Farage.And that was really unusual.Totally common in Labour, loads of people will say I vote Labour despite Starmer, but Farage has always owned it.And when you dig into why, there's a group of people who say, I'm a bit worried he's a bit too divisive.And you get another group of people who say he's too establishment.And I think the risk for the five million is less the ethics and declaration stuff, and actually a bit more of a, who is he for?

is he for, you know, and we've obviously had his earnings declaration, the housing.And look, I don't have played like he has, you know, he has strong appeal, lots of people still like him.But if you're Andy Burnham, and you're able to keep going with the for us message,it becomes more difficult if Nigel Farage looks like he's for them, which is bad.these sort of rich, wealthy individuals that's, you know, not benefiting you.And I think that is a risk.

I think he has to address that because it goes almost to the heart of his appeal, you know, that he's not in hock to people like traditional politicians, that he's genuinely for the people.

I mean, I guess there is a world in which that is more helpful for reform because they can see a world where they can continue even if Farage isn't at the top of the tree, right?Wasn't that always the argument previously was that the party is nothing without Farage?Farage.What you seem to be saying is it could be something without Farage.

It could be.And it was interesting in Makefield that you did start to hear people talking about other figures a little bit more.So, you know, like people would say, oh, Zia Youssef.I quite like him.But the problem is none of those figures have the range of appeals.If you've got this group of people who are slightly deterred by him, there's another group of people where he's holding the whole ship together almost.

And I think the Tory strategy, which I think is a risky strategy in some ways, in part is If Farage falls under the proverbial bus, so if he decides to step away, if the scandal erodes voting, then people will come back to us because he has such a hold on the right.But there is no one in reform with his cutthroat.

So let's talk about the Conservatives because you said after by -election that you know, they're palpably still alive and breathing But it's more than that, isn't it?I mean they're they're certainly being recognized by Andy Burnham at least as the sort of main party of opposition now the one that he's gonna sort of take on.

Yeah, it's really interesting because Keir Starmer, he was at the conference speech last year where he referred to reform far more than he referred to the Conservatives and I think Andy Burnhamrealised, you know, I think a lot of Andy Burnham's pitch is rooted in that sort of traditional kind of left right economic clash, which actually in some ways squeezes reform out of the picture when the focus is on that rather than on social issues.When you ask about who is winning the battle for the right, the Conservatives are still behind reform.They're about 12 points behind in our polling.But that gap has halved.in a month, which in of itself is interesting.

So previously, when we asked who was ahead in the battle for the right, Reform were ahead by 26 points over the Conservatives.They're now ahead by 12.So the Conservatives have gone up, I think, from 17 % who said that they were the main party to 24, so not huge.But Reform are also suffering slightly because slightly more people are saying restore Britain.are the main party of the right.So you've got that.

You've also got the fact that, undeniably, Kemi Badenoch is cutting through.She comes up unprompted in focus groups.People like the kind of, she says it like it is.Some of her quips cut through to people.I have a view that PMQs matters way more than it ever used to because people are watching social media clips.People just sort of send around social media clips or they end up on Facebook there and she's getting credit for that as well.

The challenge though is and it's really weird looking at the two graphs because you see Kemi Bainock's approval rating doing this and then you see the Tory vote and it's still flatline, it's still on 21%.But normally there then starts to be a sort of a bit of a pull -up effect and yet people are still saying, I'm not going to vote for them again.

Because they're still in the wilderness.

They're still in the wilderness and ordinarily, right, you'd expect that, you know, ordinarily.you go back to 1997, it takes three parliaments to forgive.But of course, because of reform, they don't have that opportunity to do wilderness.You know, if they don't start getting fruit, they'll be eaten.And as it stands, you know, in the battle for the right, you'd still rather be reformed than the Tories.

And what about the progressive parties on the left?Because If I went back a year, I mean, Zak Polanski is just about to win leadership of the Greens.Everyone's starting to compare him to Mamdani.It looks like he's going to be the force that takes on reform for the left.And he's really suffering now from Burnham and other things, right?

Yeah, so his approval rating has dropped quite significantly and it now has a lower net approval rating than Farage, which is quite striking given where he was.I think the Greens are suffering from three things again.So the first thing is Simone Gould's So the criticism from the Met Commissioner after the response on Golders Green, the council tax, you know, things like that.Again, it just goes to, oh, maybe not that different.It's the unpaid council tax because he was living on the boat.And sort of things like, I mean, not that many people care about not voting, but not being seen to tell the truth about it goes to this kind of credibility thing.

It's a slight unravelling of who you are, isn't it?

And bear in mind, there was already some skepticism about the hypnosis stuff as well.It starts to feed a narrative.So you've got that for Polanski personally.You've then got the fact that Polanski was a master of the attention economy, right?He knew how to cut through much more.But actually, when you're not in the run -up to local elections, when the focus is elsewhere, it's just hard for the Greens to get airtime.

And add to that, Andy Burnham.When you look at, when we look at our seven segments, Keir Starmer had cratered with progressive activists, the most left -leaningsegment.His approval was way, way underwater.The group that Burnham gets the biggest uplift with is that Progressive Activists.He moves into the positive with that group.

They tend to be younger graduates, tend to live in cities, sort of professional jobs, student loan is squeezing them, renting is frustrating.There's a sort of people who voted for Mandami, but he obviously has a wider coalition than just that.And Labour have dominated that group.Jeremy Corbyn got 60 % of this group.The Greens took the lead with that group under Keir Starmer, and Andy Burnham is getting the back.

So that's really interesting.So Andy Burnham could find himself bolstered, actually, without even having a row with reform, just by pulling in the Green vote.And where are the Lib Dems in all this?

And it goes back to that block ownership point, right?Andy Burnham is owning that, he's doing it together.

He's the king of the left.

He is.He is the king of the left.And the interesting thing about the Liberal Democrats is they were benefiting from some of that progressive disillusionment as well.And again, if you look at our own, it's just hypothetical polling for the moment, because Andy Burnham hasn't yet become leader.Andy Burnham takes from both the Greens and the Liberal Democrats.Actually, the size of the left and right bloc basically doesn't change with Andy Burnham.

I think the left bloc goes up one point, but he consolidates that left bloc around Labour and turns a fairly significant deficit into a one -point Labour lead.Now, it's only a point, it's not true, but given that they are otherwise, you know, seven points behind reform, it's quite a reversal.

So you mentioned Restore.We always used to call them the online party because most of Rupert Lowe'sof excitement came from social media.But it does seem like they did pretty well at Makefield.They could definitely eat into a reform vote.Do you see them on the up or on the... where are they?

Well, they got nearly 7 % in Makefield, not as high as some of their briefing, but significant.And even if I mean, double the Lib Dems, double the Tories, right?And if you look at some other polling, they could be on three, four percent.In an era of fragmented politics, three and four percent makes all the difference because people are winning on small margins.And that poses two problems for reform.One, just on raw arithmetic, they're losing voters.

But second, it poses another strategic dilemma for them because Restore supporters are broadly two camps, we find.One are a group who basically just reject.the societal, civil boundaries on issues like race and identity.They want to embrace figures like Tommy Robinson, who Farage has always said no to.There's another group who basically think reform are just a bit too establishment.And actually, I've spoken to Restore voters who think Farage is too divisive, so they're voting for Restore.

But those two camps.But if you're in reform, you then have to start thinking, well, that 3 % to 4 % they should be voting for us, right?And if you look in 2020, they actually take some reform 2024 voters.So do you chase after them?Do you drop some of your traditional boundaries?

Because there are some people in reform saying it's time to come together now, right?Bury the hatchet.Forget the leaders at the top.Yeah.

But the stuff, some of that stuff, and you see it, you know, when it gets on to, you know, things like re -migration and that type of thing.On the other side of reform, that second 50 years,that they need to win, we don't want anything to do with that.We want it immigration controlled, we want it with radical action, but we don't want our neighbours being...Sent out of the country.Yeah, deported.

And Rupert Lowe's got this idea of standing, fielding a candidate in every constituency.I mean, is that possible?Is that credible?

I mean, he could do it, but I guess one of the challenges would be, how on earth do you do the vetting for that as a party like Restore?I mean, it was interesting.

I think at that point, you probably don't need to.

No, you probably, yeah, no, no, you probably, you probably, you know, I mean, again, if you are sort of.

If your actual policy is kick them out, send them home, then does anyone care?

I think it is. I think it is feasible.And I think there then becomes a question of, you know, do people ultimately when it gets to the election.And I think we'll have many more twists and turns.You know, I can't tell you now who I think, you know, well, if it were right now, if there was a snap election right now, reform would be the main party of the right.They would do well.But, you know, given everything we've seen so far in three years time, if there isn't a snap election.

So, look, you know, full transparency here.We were at the Spectator Party last night and the question that everyone was really asking was what month is the election?And more people that I spoke to think that Andy Burnham would wait till 29, then think he'll go early.Do you share that?

Yeah, I mean, if I were asked, that's what I would say to do, because I just leave it right to the last minute.I think too many of the public now are basically Brenda from Bristol.

You're joking?Not another one?Oh for God's sake, I can't honestly, I can't stand this.There's too much politics going on at the moment.

They just want government to get on with it.They want us to be able to not have to focus on politics and government and then to start doing stuff.And look, I mean even if you look at the hypothetical polling right, let's assume that gets passed, let's assume Burnham ends up with three, four point bounce on top of that, you're still gonna lose your majority.on that.Why would you do it when you've got three years?

We're going to end with one of your tweets.This is a bit of your work looking at the leader approval rating.And at the bottom, as you said, Zach Polanski on minus 22.This is for More in Common.Nigel Farage is on minus 17.Ed Davey is on minus 7.

So we're rising now.Kemi Badenock is on minus 2, almost level with the sort of zero.Andy Burnham is at plus 5.And at the top, with plus 13, you've got one Thomas Tuchel.The weirdest thing about that was you said that lots of people messaged you after that going, Thomas Huckel, what's going on?The manager was not recognised.

I was astounded.I mean, some people actually, you know, tweeted it, you know, publicly, were like, who is this person?Why are they on?Have you done a contract?You know, they'd be like, oh, I know sometimes you make up people to see if the public are just doing placebo.And then I had people in Westminster message me like, who's this person?

Why are they on there?

I don't know what it is, but it did reveal to me, you know, that sort of, you know, we talk about sort of people living in different ecosystems and, you know, the public don't follow politics obsessively, clearly.Clearly, lots of people in Westminster politics aren't following football to the same degree.

Because probably anywhere outside Westminster, he's the only name that would ring any kind of bell at all, right?

Yeah, much higher name recognition.And at the moment, very positive.I suspect if we rerun that tracker, well, we will rerun it this weekend.Will you?I suspect it won't be as high.

So we have to have Harry Kane up there.Let's see if the Westminster recognises that one.Luke, thanks for coming in.Brilliant.Now, a lot of us went through 90 minutes of agony last night, but if you think it is stressful playing for England, then just spare a thought for our own dear John Sayles.Soaps, where are you?

I've taken the wrong turning to get to Leicester Square in the studio today.I seem to be in a car heading towards Heathrow Airport on a flight at ten past three this afternoon to Mexico City, where I'm going to meet my son, who is travelling from Australia.And I can't make any sense of the time zones, but I think I get to Mexico tonight.He gets there tomorrow.And we've got the game at the Azteca Stadium on Sunday.

So for about, what, 60 minutes of the game last night, were you still on your way to Mexico or were you not on your way to Mexico?

No, I'd put my passport away.I'd put my passport away, I'd folded up my shirts, I thought, we're not going anywhere.I messaged my son, who, and it was the middle of the night in Australia, and he'd woken up and said, oh well, never mind, it was a nice idea.And then Harry Kane did the business.And so here we are, we're on our way.And it's sort of been a bit stressful thinking, am I going?

Am I not going?I mean, I know it's probably stressful for Thomas Tuchel and the team, but honestly...No, I thought so with you.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, they're paid to be elite athletes.Also, I've got to get two days to get used to the altitude and I'm worried about the altitude.

Yeah, as a fan, it's very important to get the altitude right.That's that's the key.So just talk us through this then, because you and I are both pretty superstitious about these things.things.Was the bag packed?Was it nothing?

No, I didn't even get the bag out.I didn't get anything out.I thought I will be jinxing everything.I thought I know where the passport is, which seemed to be the most important thing, and my phone charger.And that was all I needed to know.And then I thought the rest would flow.

And I wasn't going to do a thing until the game was over.And then it was, oh, right, I'm going.I suppose I ought to check in for a flight and check that we've still got tickets.all those other things that you have to do before you fly.

So genuinely, you would not have gone to watch Dr Congo play Mexico?

No, no.I mean, honestly, that would be madness.That would be the very definition of insanity if I had gone on a plane to watch two teams I'm not that interested in.

But surely there was an insanity.I mean, you must have spent the money on this already, right?How much money would have gone down the drain if you hadn't gone?

Do you think I'm going to answer that if I know that Linda's listening?The headline is, Emily, it hasn't cost very much at all and you only live once.Those are the messaging that I'm going to stick to throughout all of this.

Right.Well, play well, bring it back for England and tatty bye.

All right, I'll see you next week.Bye.Bye for now.The News Agents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity.This has been a global production.